T H E B I RT H OF T H E M U S E U M

W hat is the cultural function o f the m useum ? H ow did m odern m useum s

evo lv e? Tony B en n ett’s invigorating study enriches and ch a llen g es our
understanding o f the m useum , placing it at the centre o f m odern relations o f
culture and governm ent.
Bennett argues that the public m useum should be understood not just as a
place o f instruction but as a reform atory o f manners in w hich a w ide range
o f regulated social routines and perform ances take place. D iscu ssin g the
historical developm ent o f m useum s alon g sid e that o f the fair and the
international exhibition, he sheds new light upon the relationship betw een
m odern form s o f official and popular culture.
In a series o f richly detailed case studies from Britain, A ustralia and
North A m erica, Bennett in vestigates how nineteenth- and tw entieth-century
m useum s, fairs and exh ib itions have organised their co llectio n s, and their
visitors. H is u se o f F oucaultian p ersp ectives and his consideration o f
m useum s in relation to other cultural institutions o f display p rovides a
distinctive perspective on contem porary m useum p o licies and p olitics.

T ony B en n ett is Professor o f Cultural Studies and Foundation D irector o f

the Institute for Cultural P o licy Studies in the Faculty o f H um anities at
Griffith U niversity, Australia. He is the author o f F o rm a lism a n d M a r x is m ,
O u tsid e L ite r a tu re and (w ith Janet W oollacott) B o n d a n d B e y o n d : T he
P o litic a l C a reer o f a P o p u la r H ero.
 C U L T U R E : P O L IC IE S A N D P O L IT IC S
S eries editors: T ony B en n e tt, J en n ifer Craik, Ian Hunter,
C o lin M e rce r and D u g a ld W illia m s o n

W hat are the relations betw een cultural p o licies and cultural politics? Too
often, none at all. In the history o f cultural studies so far, there has been no
shortage o f d iscu ssion o f cultural p olitics. O nly rarely, however, have such
discu ssion s taken account o f the p olicy instrum ents through which cultural
activities and institutions are funded and regulated in the mundane politics
o f bureaucratic and corporate life. C u ltu re: P o lic ies a n d P o litic s addresses
this im balance. The books in this series interrogate the role o f culture in the
organization o f social relations o f power, including those o f class, nation,
ethnicity and gender. They also explore the w ays in w hich p olitical agendas
in these areas are related to, and shaped by, p o licy processes and outcom es.
In its com m itm ent to the need for a fuller and clearer p o licy calculus in the
cultural sphere, C ulture: P o lic ies a n d P o litic s aims to prom ote a significant
transform ation in the political ambit and orientation o f cultural studies and
related fields.

R O C K A N D P O P U L A R M U S IC
p olitics, p o licies, institutions
E d ite d by: Tony B ennett, S im o n F rith, L a w re n ce G rossberg, Jo h n Sh ep h erd ,
G raem e T urner

G A M B L IN G C U L T U R E S
E d ite d by: Ja n M cM illen

F IL M P O L I C Y
E d ite d by: A lb e r t M oran
THE BIRTH OF
THE MUSEUM
History, theory, politics

Tony Bennett

R Routledge
Taylor & Francis Croup
LONDON AND NEW YORK
 To Tanya, Oliver and James
for liking fairs and tolerating museums

First published 1995

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0 X 1 4 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Reprinted 1996,1997, 1998,1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 (twice),

2006, 2007 (twice), 2008, 2009 (twice)
Routledge is an im print o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an inform a business

© 1995 Tony Bennett

Typeset in Times by
Ponting-Green Publishing Services, Chesham, Bucks
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All,rights reserved. N o part o f this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of
Congress
ISBN 10: 0-415-05387-0 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0-415-05388-9 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-05387-7 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-05388-4 (pbk)
 CONTENTS

L is t o f fig u r e s vii
A ck n o w le d g em e n ts viii
In tro d u ctio n . 1

P a rt I H isto r y an d th eo ry

1 THE FORM ATION OF TH E M U SE U M 17

M u seu m s a n d the p u b lic sp h e re 25
T he re o rd erin g o f th in g s 33
T ra n sp a ren cy a n d so c ia l re g u la tio n 48

2 THE EX H IBITIO N A R Y C OM PLEX 59

D isc ip lin e , su rv e illa n c e , sp e cta c le 63
S ee in g th in g s 69
The ex h ib itio n a ry d isc ip lin e s 75
The e x h ib itio n a ry a p p a ra tu se s 80
C o n clu sio n 86

3 THE POLITICAL RATIO N A LITY OF THE M U SE U M ' . 89

T he b irth o f th e m u seu m 92
A n o rd e r o f th in g s a n d p e o p le s 95
The m u seu m a n d p u b lic m a n n ers 99
The p o litic a l-d is c u rsiv e sp a c e o f the m u seu m 102

P a rt II P o lic ies an d p o litics

4 M U SEU M S A N D ‘THE PEO PLE’ 109

A c o u n try sid e o f the m in d : B ea m ish 110
P eo p lin g th e p a st: S ca n d in a via n a n d A m e ric a n fo r e r u n n e r s 115
O th er p e o p le s, o th e r p a s ts 120
Q u estio n s o f fr a m e w o r k 126
*

v
 CONTENTS

5 OUT OF W HICH PAST? 128

P ersp e c tiv e s on th e p a s t 128
T he fo r m a tio n o f an A u stra lia n p a st: c o n to u rs o f a h isto ry 135
T he sh a p e o f the p a s t 146

6 ART A N D THEORY: THE POLITICS OF THE IN V ISIBLE 163

P art III T e ch n o lo g ies o f p ro g ress

7 M U SEU M S A N D PROGRESS: N A RR A TIV E, IDEOLOGY,

PER FO R M A N C E . 177
O rg a n ize d w a lkin g as e v o lu tio n a ry p r a c tic e 179
P ro g re ss a n d its p e r fo r m a n c e s 186
S e le c tiv e a ffin itie s 189
E v o lu tio n a ry a u to m a ta 195
O ne sex a t a tim e 201

8 THE SH A PING OF TH IN G S TO COME: EXPO ’88 209

E v o lu tio n a ry ex ercise s 213
C ivic c a llisth e n ic s 219

9 A T H O U SA N D A N D O NE TRO U BLES: BLACK PO OL

P LE A SU R E BEACH 229
M o d ern ity a n d re sp e c ta b ility 230
T he P le a su re B ea c h a n d B la c k p o o l 236
A site o f p le a s u r e s 237
A w o rld tu rn e d u p sid e d o w n ? 242

N o te s 246
B ib lio g ra p h y * 256
In d e x . 270

vi
 FIGURES

1.1 P erspective view o f V ictoria 49

1.2 Festival o f Labour, the Fam ilistere, 1872 50
1.3 C leveland A rcade, 1 8 8 8 -9 0 51
1.4 The B o n M arche 52
1.5 Bethnal Green M useum , 1876 53
1.6 The Industrial G allery, Birm ingham 54
1.7 Section drawing o f Sir John S o a n e’s M useum , 1827 54
1.8 Elevated prom enade at Luna Park 56
1.9 O bservation tow er at Luna Park 57
1.10 Southwark Fair, 1733 57
1.11 B u llo c k ’s M useum o f Natural C uriosities 58
2.1 The M e ta llo th e c a o f M ich ele M ercati, 1719 60
2.2 The Great E xhibition, 1851 62
2.3 The South K ensington M useum , 1876 71
2.4 Ferrante Im perato’s m useum in N aples, 1599 78
2.5 The Crystal Palace 80
2.6 The C hicago Colum bian E xposition, 1893 85
4.1 Map o f Beam ish Open Air M useum 112
4.2 B eam ish M useum: dem onstrators at the pit cottages 119
8.1 Site map o f World E x p o '88, Brisbane * 216
8.2 The ’R ainbow sphere’ • 217
8.3 A nnexing national tim e to the m ultinational corporation 220
8.4 A dvertisem ent for the Q ueensland Cultural Centre 222
9.1 The nineteenth-century gyp sy encam pm ent, B lackpool 232
9.2 B lackpool Pleasure Beach, Easter 1913 234
9.3 The ‘w hite k nu ck le’ rides, B lackpool 239

vi i
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I o w e a good deal to m any p eop le for their help in m aking this book p ossib le.
First, I am grateful to Bronw yn Ham mond for her skilled and enthusiastic
research assistance over a number o f years. Apart from helping to keep the
book a live prospect in the m idst o f other com m itm ents, B ronw yn’s lo v e for
sleuthing in the archives proved invaluable in locating material w hich I doubt
I should otherw ise have found.
Jennifer Craik and lan Hunter offered very helpful editorial su ggestion s at
the final stage o f assem bling the book. I am grateful to both o f them for the
pains they went to in leaving no sentence unturned. W hile, no doubt, there is
still room for im provem ent, m y argum ents are a good deal m ore econom ical
and m ore clearly form ulated as a consequence.
Both also helped with their com m ents on the substance o f the argument in
particular chapters. M any others have contributed to the book in this way.
T hose w hose advice has proved esp ecially helpful in this regard include C olin
Mercer, w hose unfailing friendship and colleg ia lity 1 have enjoyed for many
years now, and D avid Saunders w ho can alw ays be counted on for pointed but
constructive criticism - and for much more. I am also grateful to Pat Buckridge,
D avid Carter and John Hutchinson for their com m ents on Chapter 8.
A s is alw ays the case, I have learned a good deal from the points made in
criticism and debate in the d iscu ssion s that have fo llo w ed the various
sem inars at w hich I have presented the ideas and arguments brought together
here. I esp ecially valued the points made by W ayne Hudson in his com m ents *
on an early draft o f the argum ents o f Chapter 1 when I presented these at a
sem inar in the Sch ool o f Cultural and H istorical Studies at Griffith U niver­
sity. I also learned a good deal from the d iscu ssion w hich fo llo w ed a sim ilar
presentation to the Departm ent o f E nglish at the U niversity o f Queensland.
Chapter 3 w as first presented at the con feren ce ‘Cultural Studies and
C om m unication Studies: C onvergences and D iv er g en ce s’ organized by the
Centre for R esearch on Culture and S ociety at Carleton U niversity in 1989.
I am grateful to the conference organizers, Ian Taylor, John Shepherd and
Valda B lundell, for*inviting m e to take part in the conference and for their
hospitality during the period I w as in Ottawa.

viii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

However, perhaps my greatest debt o f this kind is to the co llea g u es and

students involved in two courses - ‘K now ledge and P o w er’ and ‘Australian
Cultural P o lic ie s’ - in which m any o f the argum ents presented here were first
developed. So far as the first course is concerned, 1 learned much from
working alon gsid e Jeffrey M inson and Ian Hunter; with regard to the second,
I esp ecially valued the inputs o f Mark Finnane and Stephen Garton.
1 doubt that the book w ould ever have been com pleted but for a period o f
extended stud y-leave granted me by Griffith U niversity. I am grateful to the
U niversity for^ts generosity and support in this matter. I am also grateful to
the Department o f English at the U niversity o f Q ueensland for offerin g me
the facilities o f a V isitin g Scholar over this period. I esp ecia lly valued the
opportunity this gave me for extended d iscu ssio n s with John Frow and
Graeme Turner: I benefited much from their friendship and advice over this
period. I am sim ilarly gratefel to St Peter’s C olleg e, O xford U niversity, for
the hospitality it extended me when I visited Oxford to consult the resources
o f the Bodleian Library - w hose assistance 1 should also like to gratefully
acknow ledge.
Som e o f this book was written during the period that I was Dean o f the
Faculty o f H um anities at Griffith U niversity. The assistance lent me over this
period by Teresa Iwinska, the Faculty Manager, was a real help in allow in g
me to divert my energies to the jo y s o f the study from tim e to time.
I am also grateful to the sta ff o f the Institute for Cultural P olicy Studies
for their help and support over a number o f years, and often with particular
reference to work undertaken for this book. Barbara Johnstone provided much
valued research assistance in relation to som e o f the earlier phases o f the
work; Sharon C lifford has provided expert adm inistrative support; and
Glenda D onovan and Bev Jeppeson have helped at various stages in preparing
the text. Robyn Pratten and Karen Yarrow have also assisted in this. I am
grateful to all o f them.
Som e o f the chapters have been published previously in other con texts.
Chapter 2 w as first published in N e w F o rm a tio n s (no. 4, 1988) w hile Chapter
3 was first published in C o n tin u u m (vol. 3, no. 1, 1989). Chapter 4 initially
appeared in Robert L um ley (ed .) T h e M u seu m T im e-M a c h in e: P u ttin g
C u ltu res on D isp la y (R outledge, 1988), w hile Chapter 6 w as included in Jody
Berland and W ill Straw (eds) T h eo ry R u le s (U niversity o f Toronto Press,
1993). Chapter 8 first appeared in C u ltu ra l S tu d ie s (vol. 5, no. 1, 1991) w hile
Chapter 9 w as first published in F o rm a tio n s o f P le a su re (R outledge, 1982).
A ll o f these are reprinted here without any substantial variation. Chapter 5 is
a shortened version o f an occasion al paper published by the Institute for
Cultural P olicy Studies. Som e aspects o f Chapter 1 were rehearsed in an
article published under the title ‘M useum s, governm ent, culture’ in S ite s (no.
25, 1992). However, the form ulations published here are substantially revised
and extended.
I am grateful to Beam ish M useum for its perm ission to use the illustrations
 '
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

accom panying Chapter 4, and to B risbane’s South Bank Corporation, S elcom ,

and IBM A ustralia Ltd for their perm ission in relation to the illustrations
accom panying Chapter 8. I am indebted to Steve Palm er and to B lackpool
Pleasure Beach Ltd for their help in locating the illustrations for Chapter 9.
It’s hard to say why, but, as a matter o f con ven tion, partners seem alw ays
to get the last m ention in acknow ledgem ents although they contribute m ost.
Sue is no excep tion - so thanks, yet again, for helping m e through this one
in w ays too num erous to m ention.
 INTRODUCTION

In his essay ‘O f other sp a ce s’, M ichel Foucault defines heterotopias as places

in which ‘all the other real sites that can be found w ithin the culture, are
sim ultaneously represented, contested, and in verted ’ (Foucault 1986: 24). A s
such, he argues that the m useum and the library - both ‘heterotopias o f
indefinitely accum ulating tim e ’» - are peculiar to, and characteristic of,
nineteenth-century W estern culture:

the idea o f accum ulating everything, o f establishing a sort o f general

archive, the w ill to en close in one place all tim es, all ep och s, all form s,
all tastes, the idea o f constituting a place o f all tim es that is itself outside
o f time and inaccessible to its ravages, the project o f organising in this
a sort o f perpetual and indefinite accum ulation o f tim e in an im m obile
place, this w hole idea belon gs to our m odernity.
(Foucault 1986: 26)

Ranged against the m useum and the library, Foucault argues, are those
heterotopias w hich, far from being linked to the accum ulation o f tim e, are
linked to time ‘in its m ost fleeting, transitory, precarious aspect, to tim e in
the mode o f the festiv a l’ (ibid.: 26). A s his paradigm exam ple o f such spaces,
Foucault cites ‘the fairgrounds, these m arvellous em pty sites on the outskirts
o f cities that teem once or tw ice a year with stands, displays, heteroclite
objects, w restlers, snake-w om en, fortune-tellers, and so forth’ (ibid.: 26).
The terms o f the opposition are familiar. Indeed, they form ed a part o f the
discursive co-ordinates through which the m useum , in its nineteenth-century
form, was thought into being via a process o f double differentiation. For the
process o f fashioning a new space o f representation for the m odern public
museum was, at the sam e tim e, one o f constructing and defending that space
o f representation as a rational and scientific one, fully capable o f bearing the
didactic burden placed upon it, by differentiating it from the disorder that •
was imputed to com peting exhibitionary institutions. This was, in part, a
matter o f distinguishing the m useum from its predecessors. It was thus quite
com m on, toward the end o f the nineteenth century, for the m useum ’s early
historians - or, perhaps more accurately, its rhapsodists - to contrast its

1
 I NT - R OD UC T I ON

achieved order and rationality with the jum bled incongruity w hich now
seem ed to characterize the cabinets o f curiosity w hich, in its ow n lights, the
m useum had supplanted and surpassed. T hose w ho w ould visit the local
m useum s in Britain’s sm aller tow ns, Thom as G reenw ood warned in 1888,
should be prepared to find ‘dust and disorder reigning suprem e’. And worse:

The orderly soul o f the M useum student w ill quake at the sight o f a
C hinese la d y ’s boot encircled by a necklace made o f sharks’s teeth, or
a helm et o f one o f C rom w ell’s soldiers grouped w ith som e Roman
rem ains. A nother corner m ay reveal an Egyptian m um m y placed in a
m ediaeval chest, and in more than one instance the curious visitor might
be startled to find the cups won by a crack cricketer o f the county in
the collectio n , or even the stuffed relics o f a pet pug dog.
(G reenw ood 1888: 4)

B y contrast, where new m useum s had been established under the M useum s
or Public Library A cts, G reenw ood asserts that ‘order and system is com ing
out o f c h a o s’ ow in g to the constraints placed on ‘fo ssilism or fo o lish
p roceed in gs’ by the dem ocratic com p osition o f the bodies responsible for
governing those m useum s.
This attribution o f a rationalizing effec t to the dem ocratic influence o f a
citizenry was, in truth, som ew hat rare, esp ecia lly in the British con text. 1 For
it was more usually scien ce that w as held responsible for having subjected
m useum displays to the influence o f reason. Indeed, the story, as it was
custom arily told, o f the m useum ’s developm ent from chaos to order was,
sim ultaneously, that o f s c ie n c e ’s progress from error to truth. Thus, for David
Murray, the distinguishing features o f the m odern m useum were the prin­
cip les o f ‘sp ecialisation and classification ’ (Murray 1904: 231): that is, the
developm ent o f a range o f sp ecialist m useum types (o f g eo lo g y , natural
history, art, etc.) w ithin each o f which objects were arranged in a manner
calculated to m ake in telligib le a scientific v iew o f the world. In com parison
with this educational intent, Murray argued, pre-m odern m useum s were more
concerned to create surprise or provoke wonder. This entailed a focu s on the
rare and excep tional, an interest in objects for their singular qualities rather
than for their typicality, and encouraged principles o f display aim ed at a
sensational rather than a rational and p ed agogic effect. For Murray, the
m oralized sk eleton s found in early anatom ical co llectio n s thus achieved such
a sensational effec t only at the price o f an incongruity w hich nullified their
educational potential.

For exam ple, the anatom ical collectio n at Dresden w as arranged like a
pleasure garden. Skeletons were interw oven with branches o f trees in
the form o f hedges so as to form vistas. A natom ical subjects were
difficult to com e by, and when they w ere got, the m ost was made o f
them. At L eyden they had the skeleton o f an ass upon which sat a

2
 INTRODUCTION

woman that killed her daughter; the skeleton o f a man, sitting upon an
ox, execu ted for stealing cattle; a young th ief hanged, being the
Bridegroom w hose Bride stood under the gallow s. . .
(Murray 1904: 208)

Yet sim ilar incongruities persisted into the present w here, in com m ercial
exhibitions o f natural and artificial w onders, in travelling m enageries and the
circus and, above all, at the fair, they form ed a part o f the surrounding cultural
environs from which the m useum sought constantly to extricate itself. For
the fair o f \ЛпсЬ Foucault speaks did not m erely relate to time in a different
way from the m useum . N or did it sim ply occupy space differently, tem por­
arily taking up residence on the c ity ’s outskirts rather than being perm anently
located in its centre. The fair also confronted - and affronted - the m useum
as a still extant em bodim ent o f the ‘irrational’ and ‘ch a o tic’ disorder that had
characterized the m useum ’s precursors. It was, so to speak, the m useum ’s
own pre-history com e to haunt it.
The anxiety exhibited by the N ational M useum o f V ictoria in the stress it
placed, in its founding years (the 1850s), on its intention to display ‘small
and ugly creatures’ as w ell as ‘sh o w y ’ ones - to display, that is, objects for
their instructional rather than for their curiosity or ornam ental value - thus
related as much to the need to differentiate it from contem porary popular
exhibitions as to that o f dem onstrating its historical surpassing o f the cabinet
o f curiosities. The opening o f the N ational M useum o f V ictoria coincided
with M elb ourne’s acquisition o f its first perm anent m enagerie, an estab­
lishm ent housed in a com m ercial am usem ent park w hich - just as much as
the m enagerie it contained - was given over to the principles o f the fabulous
and the am azing. W hereas the m enagerie stressed the exotic q ualities o f
anim als, so the accent in the surrounding entertainm ents com prising the
amusement park was on the m arvellous and fantastic: ‘Juan Fernandez, who
nightly put his head into a lion ’s mouth, a Fat Boy, a Bearded W oman, som e
Ethiopians, W izards, as w ell as B illiards, Shooting G alleries, Punch and Judy
Show s and B ow lin g S a lo o n s’ (Goodm an 1990: 28). If, then, as G oodm an puts
it, the N ational M useum o f V ictoria represented itse lf to its public as a
‘classifyin g h o u se’, em phasizing its scien tific and instructional q ualities, this
was as much a way o f declaring that it was not a circus or a fair as it w as a
means o f stressing its d ifferen ces from earlier collectio n s o f curiosities.
Yet, how ever much the m useum and the fair were thought o f and
functioned as contraries to one another, the op position Foucault posits
between the tw o is, perhaps, too starkly stated. It is also in sufficien tly
historical. O f course, Foucault is fully alert to the historical novelty o f those
relations w hich, in the early nineteenth century, saw the m useum and the fair
em erge as contraries. Yet he is not equally attentive to the historical processes
which have subsequently worked to undermine the terms o f that opposition.
The em ergence, in the late nineteenth century, o f another ‘other sp a ce’ - the

•*
 INTRODUCTION

fixed-site am usem ent park - w as esp ecially significant in this respect in view
o f the degree to w hich the am usem ent park occupied a point som ew here
betw een the op posin g values Foucault attributes to the m useum and the
travelling fair.
The form ative developm ents here were A m erican. From the m id-1890s a
su ccession o f am usem ent parks at C oney Island served as the prototypes for
this new ‘h eterotopia’. W hile retaining som e elem ents o f the travelling fair,
the parks m ixed and m erged these with elem en ts derived, indirectly, from the
programme o f the public m useum . In their carnival aspects, am usem ent parks
thus retained a com m itm ent to ‘tim e in the m ode o f the fe stiv a l’ in providing
for the relaxation or inversion o f normal standards o f behaviour. However,
w h ile initially tolerant o f traditional fairground sid e-sh o w s - F oucault’s
w restlers, snake-w om en and fortune-tellers - this tolerance was alw ays
selectiv e and, as the form developed, m ore stringent as am usem ent parks,
m odellin g their aspirations on those o f the public parks m ovem ent, sought to
dissociate them selves from anything w hich m ight detract from an atmosphere
o f w holesom e fam ily entertainment.
M oreover, such sid e-sh ow s increasingly clashed with the am usem ent
park’s ethos o f m odernity and its com m itm ent, like the m useum , to an
accum ulating tim e, to the unstoppable m om entum o f progress which, in its
characteristic form s o f ‘h a ilin g ’ (accenting ‘the n ew ’ and ‘the latest’) and
entertainm ents (m echanical rides), the am usem ent- park claim ed both to
represent and to harness to the cause o f popular pleasure. Their positions
w ithin the evolutionary tim e o f progress w ere, o f course, different, as were
the w ays in w hich they provided their visitors with opportunities to enact this
tim e by building it into the perform ative regim es w hich regulated their
itineraries. However, by the end o f the century, both the m useum and the
am usem ent park participated in elaborating and diffu sing related (although
rarely identical) conceptions o f tim e. This w as not without con sequ en ce for
travelling fairs w hich cam e to feature the new m echanical rides alongside
w restlers, snake-w om en and fortune-tellers, thereby encom passing a clash o f
tim es rather than a singular, fleeting tim e that could be sim ply opposed to the
accum ulating tim e o f m odernity.
If, then, unlike the traditional travelling fair, fixed-site am usem ent parks
gave a specific em bodim ent to m odernity, they were also unlike their itinerant
predecessors in the regulated and ordered m anner o f their functioning. In the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the fair had served as the very
em blem for the disorderly form s o f conduct associated with all sites o f
popular assem bly. By contrast, early so cio lo g ica l assessm ents o f the cultural
significance o f the am usem ent park judged that it had succeeded in pacifying
the conduct o f the crowd to a much greater degree than had the public or
b enevolent provision o f im proving or rational recreations.2
B y the end o f the nineteenth century, then, the em ergence o f the am usem ent
park had w eakened that sense o f a rigorous duality betw een tw o heterotopias

4
 INTRODUCTION

_ the museum and the fair - view ed as em bodying antithetical orderings o f

time and space. However, this situation had been prepared for in the earlier
history o f international exh ib itions w hich, throughout the second h alf o f the
nineteenth century, provided for a zone o f interaction betw een the m useum
■tnd the fair w hich, w hile not undoing their separate identities, undermined
their seem ingly inherent contrariness in in volvin g them, indirectly, in an
incessant and m ultifaceted set o f exchan ges with one another. If the m ost
immediate inspiration for C oney Island ’s am usem ent parks w as thus the
Midway (or popular fair zon e) at C h ica g o ’s C olum bian Exhibition in 1893,
it is no less true that the C hicago M idw ay w as profoundly influenced by
museum practices.
The role accorded m useum anthropology in harm onizing the representa­
tional horizons o f the M idw ay with the id eological them e o f progress was
especially significant in this respect, albeit that, in the event, traditions o f
popular show m anship often eclip sed the scien tific pretensions o f anthropo­
lo g y ’s claim s to rank civilization s in an evolutionary hierarchy. There were,
however, m any other w ays in which (in spite o f the efforts to keep them
clearly separated) the activities o f fairs, m useum s and exh ib itions interacted
with one another: the founding co llec tio n s o f m any o f to d a y ’s major
metropolitan m useum s were bequeathed by international exhibitions; tech ­
niques o f crowd control developed in exh ib itions influenced the d esign and
iayout o f am usem ent parks; and nineteenth-century natural history m useum s
throughout Europe and North A m erica ow ed m any o f their sp ecim ens to the
network o f animal collectin g agen cies through which P.T. Barnum provided
live sp ecies for his various circuses, m enageries and dim e m useum s.
Ф
The organizing focu s for m y concerns in this study is provided by the
museum. Indeed, my purpose - or at least a good part o f it - has been to
provide a p olitically focu sed genealogy for the m odern public m useum . By
‘g en ea lo g y ’, I mean an account o f the m useum ’s form ation and early
developm ent that w ill help to illum inate the co-ordinates w ithin which
questions o f m useum p o licies and politics have been, and continue to be,
posed. As such, this account is en visaged as contributing to a shared
enterprise. For there are, now, a number o f such histories which aspire to
provide accounts o f the m useum ’s past that w ill prove more serviceab le in
relation to present-day m useum debates and practices than those accounts -
still dominant in the 1950s - cast in the w higgish m ould o f the m useum ’s
early chroniclers.3 W here, however, the account offered here m ost ob viou sly
ditlers from other such endeavours is in its diacritical conception o f the tasks
a genealogy o f the m useum m ight u sefully address. Eilean H ooper-G reenhill,
tor exam ple, proposes a gen ealogy o f the m useum w hich concerns itself
mainly with transform ations in those practices o f classification and display -
and o f the associated changes in subject positions these im plied - that are
mternal to the museum (H ooper-G reenhill 1988). By contrast, I shall argue

5
 INTRODUCTION

that the m u seu m ’s form ation needs also to be v iew ed in relation to the
developm ent o f a range o f collateral cultural institutions, including appar­
ently alien and disconnected ones.
The fair and the exhibition are not, o f course, the only candidates for
consideration in this respect. If the m useum w as co n ceiv ed as distinct from
and opposed to the fair, the sam e w as true o f the w ays in which its relations
to other places o f popular assem bly (and esp ecia lly the public house) were
en visaged . Equally, the m useum has undoubtedly been influenced by it$
relations to cultural institutions w hich, lik e the m useum itself and like the
early international exh ib ition s, had a rational and im proving orientation:
libraries and public parks, for exam ple. N one the less, a number o f character­
istics set the m useum , international exh ib itions and m odern fairs apart as a
distinctive grouping. Each o f these institutions is in volved in the practice o f
‘show ing and tellin g ’: that is, o f exh ib iting artefacts and/or persons in a
manner calculated to em body and com m unicate sp ecific cultural m eanings
and values. They are also institutions w hich, in being open to all-com ers,
have shown a sim ilar concern to devise w ays o f regulating the conduct o f
their visitors, and to do so, ideally, in w ays that are both unobtrusive and self-
perpetuating. Finally, in their recognition o f the fact that their v isito r s’
experiences are realized via their physical m ovem ent through an exhibition-
ary space, all three institutions have shared a concern to regulate the
perform ative aspects o f their v isito r s’ conduct. O vercom ing m ind/body
dualities in treating their visitors as, essen tially, ‘m inds on le g s ’, each, in its
different way, is a place for ‘organized w a lk in g ’ in w hich an intended
m essage is com m unicated in the form o f a (m ore or less) directed itinerary.
N one the le ss, for all their d istin ctiven ess, the changes that can be traced
w ithin the practices o f these exhibitionary institutions need also to be view ed
in their relations to broader developm ents affectin g related cultural institu­
tions. In this regard, m y account o f the ‘birth o f the m useum ’ is one in which
the focus on the relations betw een m useum s, fairs and exhibitions is meant
to serve as a d evice for a broader historical argument w hose concern is a
transformation in the arrangement o f the cultural field over the course o f the
nineteenth century.
These are the issues engaged with in the chapters com prising Part I. Three
questions stand to the fore here. The first concerns the respects in w hich the
public m useum exem p lified the d evelopm en t o f a new ‘g overn m en tal’
relation to culture in w hich works o f high culture were treated as instruments
that could be enlisted in new w ays for new tasks o f social m anagem ent. This
w ill in volve a consideration o f the manner in w hich the m useum , in providing
a new setting for w orks o f culture, also functioned as a techn ological
environm ent w hich allow ed cultural artefacts to be refashioned in w ays that
w ould facilitate their deploym ent for new purposes as parts o f governm ental
programmes aim ed at reshaping general norm s o f social behaviour.
In being thus con ceived as instruments capable o f ‘liftin g ’ the cultural level

6
 INTRODUCTION

0 f the population, nineteenth-century m useum s w ere faced with a new

r o b l e m : how to regulate the conduct o f their visitors. Sim ilar d ifficulties

were faced by other nineteenth-century institutions w hose function required

that they freely admit an undifferentiated m ass public: railw ays, exh ib itions,
an d department stores, for exam ple. The problem s o f behaviour m anagem ent
this posed drew forth a variety o f architectural and techn ological solutions
which, w hile having their origins in specific institutions, often then migrated
to others. The second strand o f an alysis in Part I thus con sid ers how
t e c h n i q u e s o f behawour m anagem ent, developed in m useum s, exh ib itions,
and department stores, were later incorporated in am usem ent parks w hose
design aim ed to transform the fair into a sphere o f regulation.
The third set o f questions focu ses on the space o f representation associated
with the public museum and on the p olitics it generates. In The O rd er o f
T hings, Foucault refers to the am biguous role played by the ‘em pirico-
transcendental doublet o f m an’ in the human scien ces: man functions as an
o bject made visible by those scien ces w h ile also doubling as the su b je c t o f
the know ledges they m ake available. Man, as Foucault puts it, ‘appears in his
ambiguous position as an object o f k now ledge and as a subject that knows;
enslaved sovereign, observed spectator’ (Foucault 1970: 312). The m useum ,
it will be argued, also constructs man (and the gendered form is, as w e shall
see, historically appropriate) in a relation o f both subject and object to the
know ledge it organizes. Its space o f representation, constituted in the
relations betw een the d iscip lin es w hich organize the display fram eworks o f
different types o f m useum (geology, archaeology, anthropology, e’tc), posits
man - the outcom e o f evolution - as the object o f k now ledge. At the same
time, this m ode o f representation constructs for the visitor a p osition o f
achieved humanity, situated at the end a f evolutionary developm ent, from
which m an’s developm ent, and the subsidiary evolutionary series it sub­
sumes, can be rendered intelligible. There is, however, a tension w ithin this
space o f representation betw een the apparent universality o f the subject and
object o f know ledge (man) which it constructs, and the alw ays so cia lly partial
and particular ways in w hich this universality is realized and em bodied in
museum displays. This tension, it w ill be su ggested , has supplied - and
continues to supply - the d iscu rsive co-ordinates for the em ergen ce o f
contemporary museum p olicies and p olitics oriented to securing parity o f
representation for different groups and cultures w ithin the exhibitionary
practices o f the museum .
It this demand constitutes one o f the distinctive aspects o f m odern political
debates relating to the m useum , a second con sists in the now more or less
normative requirement (although one m ore honoured in theory than in
practice) that public m useum s should be equally a ccessib le to all section s o f
e population. W hile this demand is partly inscribed in the conception o f the
niodern m useum as a p u b lic m useum , its status has been, and rem ains,
somewhat am bivalent. For it can be asserted in the form o f an expectation
 INTRODUCTION

that the m useum ’s benevolent and im proving influence ought, in the interests
o f the state or society as a w hole, to reach all sections o f the population. Or
it can be asserted as an in violab le cultural right w hich all citizen s ih a
dem ocracy are entitled to claim . Som ething o f the tension betw een these two
conceptions is visib le in the history o f m useum visitor statistics. Crude visitor
statistics were available from as early as the 1830s, but only in a form which
allow ed gross visitor numbers to be correlated with days o f the w eek or times
o f the year. The earliest political use o f these figures w as to dem onstrate the
increased numbers visitin g in the evenings, bank holidays and - when Sunday
opening w as perm itted - Sundays. Reform ers like Francis Place and, later,
Thom as G reenw ood seized on such figures as evidence o f the m useum ’s
capacity to carry the im proving force o f culture to the working classes. This
concern with m easuring the civ ilizin g influence o f the m useum is both related
to and yet also distinct from a concern with im proving a ccess to m useum s on
the grounds o f cultural rights - an issue w hich did not em erge until m uch-
later when studies o f the dem ographic profiles o f m useum visitors dem on­
strated so cia lly differentiated patterns o f use. More to the point, perhaps, if
developm ents in adjacent fields are anything to go by, is that pow erful
id eological factors m ilitated against the acquisition o f inform ation o f this
type. Edward Edwards, one o f the major figures in the public library
m ovem ent in Britain, thus sternly chastized local public libraries for obtain­
ing inform ation regarding the occup ations o f their, users as bein g both
unauthorized and irrelevant to their purpose.4
An adequate account o f the history o f m useum visitor studies has yet to be
written. It seem s clear, however, that the developm ent o f clearly articulated
dem ands for m aking m useum s a ccessib le to all sections o f the population has
been clo sely related to the developm ent o f statistical surveys w hich have
made visib le the social com position o f the visitin g public. The provenance
o f such studies is, at the earliest, in the 1920s and, for the m ost part, belongs
to the post-w ar period.5 B e this as it may, cultural rights principles are now
strongly enshrined in relation to public m useum s and, although dependent on
external m onitoring d evices for their im plem entation, they have clearly also
been fuelled by the internal dynam ics o f the m useum form in its establishm ent
o f a public space in w hich rights are supposed to be universal and un­
differentiated.
T hese, then, are the m ain issues review ed in the first part o f this study.
W hile each o f the three chapters grouped together here has som ething to say
about each o f these questions, they differ in their stress and em phasis as w ell
as in their angle o f theoretical approach. In the first chapter, ‘The Formation
o f the M u seum ’, the primary theoretical co-ordinates are supplied by
F oucault’s concept o f liberal governm ent. This is drawn on to outline the
w ays in w hich m useum s form ed a part o f new strategies o f governing aimed
at producing a citizenry w hich, rather than needing to be externally and
coercively directed, w ould increasingly m onitor and regulate its own conduct.
 INTRODUCTION

the s e c o n d chapter, ‘The Exhibitionary C om p lex’, the stress falls rather

F o u c a u l t ’s understanding o f d isciplinary pow er in its application to
00 eurns and on the w ays in which the insights this generates might usefully
111 moderated by the perspectives on the rhetorical strategies o f pow er
bC eested by G ram sci’s theory o f hegem ony. The final chapter in Part I, ’The
P o litical R ationality o f the M useum ’, look s prim arily to Foucault again,
a lth ou gh to another aspect o f his work. Here, F oucault’s w ritings on the
son are treated as a m odel for an account o f the respects in w hich many
asp ects o f contem porary m useum p o licies and politics have been generated
out o f the discursive Тю -ordinates w hich have governed the m u seu m ’s
fo rm a tio n .
/T h e r e are, I have suggested, tw o d istinctive political demands that have
been cenerated in relation to the m odern museum: the demand that there
Should be parity o f representation for all groups and cultures w ithin the
collecting, exhibition and conservation activities o f m useum s, and the
demand that the m em bers o f all social groups should have equal practical as
well theoretical rights o f access^ to m useum s. More detailed and specific
e x a m p le s o f the kinds o f issu es generated by these political dem ands form
the subject matter o f the second part o f this study. If, in Part I, m y concern
is to trace the conditions w hich have allow ed m odern m useum p o licies and
politics to em erge and take the shape that they have, the focus in the second
part m oves to specific engagem ents with particular contem porary political
and policy issues from w ithin the perspectives o f what I have called the
m useum ’s ‘political rationality’.
There is, however, a broadening o f focu s in this part o f the book in that
my attention is no longer lim ited ex c lu siv e ly to public m useum s. In Chapter
4, ‘M useum s and “ the P e o p le ” ’, I con sid er the com peting and contradictory
ways in which ‘the p eo p le’ might be represented in the display practices o f
a broad variety o f different types o f m useum . For the purpose o f dem on­
strating som e effec tiv e contrasts, m y d iscu ssion here ranges across the
romantic populism that is often associated with the open-air m useum form to
the social-dem ocratic con ception s o f ‘the p eo p le’ w hich govern many
contemporary Australian m useum installations. I also evaluate the more
radical socialist and fem inist conceptions o f the form s in w hich ‘the p eo p le’
might m ost appropriately be represented by con sid erin g the exam p le o f
G lasgow ’s peerless P eo p le’s Palace.
The next chapter, ‘Out o f W hich P ast?’, broadens the scop e o f the
discussion. It considers the respects in w hich the dem and for form s o f
representing the past that are appropriate to the interests and valu es o f
different groups in the com m unity can be extended beyond the public
museum. This demand can encom pass heritage sites just as it can be applied
о the picture o f the past that em erges from the entire array o f m useum s and
the'ta^e S*tCS *П 3 Part*cu ^ar so c iety- In the final chapter in Part II, however,
e ocus returns to the public m useum , esp ecially the public art gallery.

9
 INTRODUCTION

Drawing on the argum ents o f Pierre Bourdieu, ‘Art and Theory: The Politics
o f the In v isib le’ explores the relationship betw een the display practices o f art
galleries and the patterns o f their social usage. Art galleries, it is suggested
remain the least publicly a ccessib le o f all public co llectin g institutions. This
is largely because o f their continuing com m itm ent to display principles which
entail that the order subtending the art on display rem ains in visib le and
unintelligible to those not already equipped with the appropriate cultural
sk ills. Such an entrenched p osition now seem s increasingly w ilful as notions ■
o f access and equity com e to perm eate all dom ains o f culture and to legitim ate
public expenditure in such dom ains.
In the final part o f the book, m y attention returns to m useum s, fairs and
exh ib itions, and to the relations betw een them. T hese, however, are now
broached from a different perspective. Here, I consider the different w ays in
w hich, in their late nineteenth- and early tw entieth-century form ation,
m useum s, fairs and exh ib ition s functioned as tech n o lo g ies o f progress. The
notion is not a new one. Indeed, it w as quite com m on at the tim e for m useum s
and the like to be referred to as ‘m achines for progress’. Such metaphors, I
shall argue, were by no m eans m isplaced. V iew ed as cultural techn ologies
w hich achieve their effec tiv e n e ss through the articulated com bination o f the
representations, routines and regulations o f w hich they are com prised,
m useum s, fairs and exh ib itions do indeed have a m ach ine-like aspect to their
con ception and fun ction ing. The elaboration o f this argum ent, however,
in volves a shift o f perspective. It requires that w e con sid er not m erely how
progress is represented in each o f these institutions - for this is fairly fam iliar
ground - but also the different w ays in w hich those representations were
organized as perform ative resources w hich program m ed v isito r s’ behaviour
as w ell as their cogn itive horizons. This w ill in volve v iew in g such repres­
entations o f progress as props w hich the visitor m ight u tiliz ^ fo r particular
form s o f self-d evelopm en t - evolutionary ex ercises o f the s e lf - rather than
so le ly as parts o f textual regim es w h ose influence is o f a rhetorical or
id eological nature.
Chapter 7, ‘M useum s and Progress: N arrative, Id eology, Perform ance’
opens the argum ent in review ing a variety o f the different w ays in w hich the
layout o f late nineteenth-century natural history, eth n ology and anatomy
collectio n s w as calculated so as to allow the visitor to retread the paths o f
evolutionary developm ent w hich led from sim ple to more com plex form s o f
life. This argum ent is exem plified by considering how the Pitt-R ivers
typological system for the display o f ‘sa v a g e’ peoples and their artefacts
constituted a ‘progressive m ach inery’ w hich, in seeking to prom ote progress,
sought also to lim it and direct it. There then fo llo w s a consideration o f the
respects in w hich the evolutionary narratives and itineraries o f nineteenth-
century m useum s were gendered in their structure as w ell as in the perform at­
iv e p o ssib ilities to which they gave rise.
The next chapter, ‘The Shaping o f Things to Come: Expo ’88 ’, considers

10
 INTRODUCTION

form o f the international exhibition has developed to provide an

h° W onrnent in which the visitor is invited to undertake an incessant updating
e° m odernizing o f the self. In applying this perspective to B risbane’s Expo
° r nlt(his chapter also considers the w ays in which rhetorics o f progress
bined with those o f the nation and o f the city to provide a com p lexly
com nized environm ent that w as open to - indeed, d esign ed for - many
Afferent kinds o f social perform ance. Finally, in Chapter 9, ‘A Thousand and
One Troubles: Blackpool Pleasure B each ’, m y attention turns to the w ays in
w hich rhetorics o f progress can saturate the environm ent o f a w hole town,
but paying special regard to B lack p ool’s fair - the Pleasure Beach - where
ro g ress is encoded into the pleasurable perform ances that the fairgoer is
ex p e c te d to undertake. H owever, this detailed case-stu d y o f a modern
a m u s e m e n t park serves a further purpose in graphically illustrating the
re sp e cts in which the m odernization and stream lining o f pleasure associated
w ith th e contem porary fair draw on the m odernizing rhetorics and techn o­
logies o f m useum s and exhibitions.
This final chapter also introduces a qualification w hich it m ight be useful
to mention at the outset. M y concern in this book is largely with m useum s,
fairs and exh ib itions as en visaged in the plans and projections o f their
advocates, designers, directors and m anagers. The degree to which such plans
and projections were and are su ccessfu l in organizing and fram ing the
experience o f the visitor or, to the contrary, the degree to w hich such planned
effects are evaded, sid e-step ped or sim p ly not noticed raises different
questions w hich, important though they are, I have not addressed here.
I have already m entioned som e o f the theoretical sources I have drawn on
in preparing this study.. The work o f Foucault, in its various form s and
interpretations, has been important to m e as has been that o f G ram sci,
although 1 have been aware - and have not sought to d isgu ise - the often
awkward and uneasy tension that exists betw een these. It is perhaps worth
adding that, as it has d eveloped, the tendency o f m y work in this area has
inclined more towards the Foucaultian than the Gramscian paradigm.
Pierre B ourdieu’s work has also been invaluable for the light it throws on
the contradictory dynam ics o f the m useum , a n d ^ sp ecia lly the art gallery.
W hile the gallery is theoretically a public institution open to all, it has
typically been appropriated by ruling elites as a key sym bolic site for those
performances o f ‘d istinction’ through w hich the co g n o sc e n ti differentiate
them selves from ‘the m a sse s’. Jurgen H aberm as’s historical argum ents
regarding the form ation o f the bourgeois public sphere have been helpful,
too, although I have been careful to extricate these from H aberm as’s
'a ectical expectation that such a public sphere anticipates a more ideal
speech situation into w hich history has yet to deliver us. Equally important,
o - more so > have been the significant fem inist re-thinkings o f the notion
e public sphere, and o f the public-private divide m ore generally, offered
У oan Landes, Carole Pateman and Mary Ryan. Finally, K rzysztof P om ian’s

11
 INTRODUCTION

work has been helpful in su ggestin g how co llectio n s m ight u sefully be

distinguished from one another in terms o f the different kinds o f contract they
establish betw een the spheres o f the v isib le and in visib le.
M y use o f this fairly diverse set o f theoretical resources has been largely
pragmatic in orientation. W hile I have not sought to deny or repress important
theoretical d ifferen ces w here these have been relevant to m y concerns
resolving such questions has not been m y purpose in this book. For the m ost
part, I have sim ply drawn selectiv ely on different aspects o f these theoretical
traditions as has seem ed m ost appropriate in relation to the specific issues
under d iscussion.
For all that this is an academ ic book m otivated by a particular set of
intellectual interests, I doubt that I should have finished it had I not had a
fairly strong personal interest in its subject matter. W hile biographical factors
are usually best left unsaid, there may be som e point, in this case, in dw elling
briefly on the personal interests and investm ents which have helped to sustain
m y interests in the issues this book explores. In T he S a c r e d G ro v e , D illon
R ipley inform s the reader that his p hilosoph y o f m useum s was established
when, at the age o f ten, he spent a winter in Paris:

One o f the advantages o f playing in the Tuileries Gardens as a child

was that at any one m om ent one could be riding the carousel, hoping
against hope to catch the ring. The next instant one m ight be o ff
wandering the paths am ong the chestnuts and the plane trees, looking
for the old wom an w ho sold g a u fre s, those w onderful hot wafer-thin,
w afflelik e creations dusted over with powdered sugar. A third instant
in tim e, and there was the Punch and Judy show, mirror o f life, now
com ic, now sad. Another m om ent and one could wander into one o f the
galleries at the Louvre. . . . Then out to the garden again where there
was a patch o f sand in a corner to build sand castles. Then back to the
Louvre to wander through the Grand Gallery.
(R ipley 1978: 140)

The p hilosophy R ipley derived from this experience w as that there was,
and should be, no essential d ifferen ces betw een the learning environm ent of
the m useum and the w orld o f fun and gam es; one should be able to m ove
naturally betw een the two. For a bourgeois boy, such an effortless transition
betw een the m useum and a gentrified selection o f fairground pleasures would,
no doubt, have proved p ossib le. My ow n experience - and I expect it is rather
more typical - was different. For m e, the fair cam e before the m useum , and
by a good m any years. And the fair in all its forms: the travelling fairs that
set up cam p in L ancashire’s towns during their w ak es-w eek s holidays;
M anchester’s permanent am usem ent park. B elle Vue, where my father taught
me the w hite-knuckle art o f riding the bone-shaking Bobs; and B la ck p o o l’s
Pleasure B each which I visited m any tim es as a child and as a teenager before
returning to it later in life as an object o f study. W hen, in m y early adulthood.

12
 INTRODUCTION

I began to explore the world o f m useum s and art sa il™ •

sense o f an effortless transition such as R ipley d " W3S П° Г With a
contrary, part o f a cultural itinerary, travelled u /L eSCnbes; il w as, to the
required a fam iliarity with a new h a b itu s in order to f S T “ re'UCtance’ which
in such institutions. Equally, however, for the гея.™ i а"У Way at hom e
to, going to fairs and'visiting m useum s or e x h i b i t i o n s ^ ^ !
« in som e wav related a c t i v i t y e alw ays struck me
Writing this book, then has served as a m eans o f trying to account for the
experience o f different but sim ilar’ which I still have when visiting either
fairs or m useum s. Its am bition, however, is to explain these sim ilarities and
differences in terms o f historical p rocesses o f cultural form ation rather than
as than personal idiosyncracies.

13
¥ \\

Part I
HISTORY AND THEORY
 1

THE F O R M A T I O N OF
THE M U S E U M

In 1849, James Silk Buckingham , a prom inent English social reformer,

ublishe'd a plan for a m odel town, j n extollin g the virtues o f his proposals
he drew attention to their capacity to prepare all m em bers o f the com m unity
for ‘a higher state o f existen ce, instead o f m erely vegetating like m illion s in
the present state o f society, who are far less cared for, and far less happy,
than the brutes that perish' (B uckingham 1849: 2 2 4 ). B uckingham was
insistent, however, that such a transformation could be wrought so lely by the
application of, as he called them, ‘practical rem ed ies’. It is worth quoting in
full the passage in which he argues with h im self on this question:

It is constantly contended that m ankind are not to be im proved by mere

m echanical arrangem ents, and that their reform ation must first begin
within. But there is surely no reason why both should not be called into
operation. A person w ho is w ell fed , w ell clad, cheerfully because
agreeably occupied, liv in g in a clean house, in an open and w ell
ventilated Town, free from the intem perate, d isso lu te, and v icio u s
associations o f our existin g cities and v illages - with ready a ccess to
Libraries, Lectures, G alleries o f Art, Public W orship, with many objects
of architectural beauty, fountains, statues, and colonn ades, around him,
instead o f rags, filth, drunkenness, and prostitution, with blasphem ous
oaths or dissolute conversation defiling his ears, w ould at least be more
likely to be a ccessib le to moral sentim ents, generous fee lin g s, and
religious and devout con victions and conduct, than in the teem ing hives
° f iniquity, with w hich m ost o f our large cities and towns abound.
Inward regeneration w ill som etim es occur in spite o f all these ob stacles,
and burst through every barrier, but these are the excep tions, and not
the rules; and the conduct pursued by all good parents towards their
i aren, in keeping them away as much as p ossib le from evil a sso c i­
ations, and surrounding them by the best exam p les and in centives to
virtue, is sufficient proof o f the alm ost universal con viction, that the
a^r?Umstances *П individuals are placed, and the kind o f training
education they receive, have a great influence in the form ation o f

17
 HISTORY AND THEORY

their character, and m aterially a ssist at least the developm ent o f the
noblest faculties o f the mind and heart.
(Buckingham 1849: 2 2 4 -5 )

The passage ech oes a characteristic trait o f late eighteenth- and early
nineteenth-century con ception s o f the tasks o f governm ent. In the formula,
tions o f the scien ce o f p olice that were produced over this period, Foucault
has argued, it was tfie fam ily that typically served as the m odel for a form of
governm ent which, in concerning itse lf with ‘the w ealth and behaviour of
each and a ll’, aspired to subject the population o f the state to ‘a form of
surveillance and control as attentive qp that o f the head o f a fam ily over his
h ousehold and his g o o d s’ (Foucault 1978: 92). ‘The P eo p le’, as Patrick
C olquhoun put it, ‘are to the L egislature what a child is to a parent’
(Colquhoun 1796: 2 4 2 -3 ). Just as remarkable, however, is Buckingham ’s
persistence in m aintaining that the exercise o f such surveillance and control
need not be thought o f as any different in principle, w hen applied to the moral
or cultural w ell being o f the population, from its application to the field of
p hysical health. Both are a matter o f m aking the appropriate ‘mechanical
arrangem ents’. Libraries, public lectures and art galleries thus present
them selves as instrum ents capable o f im proving ‘m an’s ’ inner life just as well
laid out spaces can im prove the p hysical health o f the population. If, in this
way, culture is brought w ithin the province o f governm ent, its conception is
on a par with other regions o f governm ent. The reform o f the s e lf - o f the
inner life - is just as m uch dependent on the p rovision o f appropriate
tech n ologies for this purpose as is the achievem ent o f desired ends in any
other area o f social administration.
There is no shortage o f schem es, plans and proposals cast in a sim ilar vein.
In 1876, Benjam in Ward Richardson, in his plan for H ygeia, a city o f health,
set h im self the task o f outlining sanitary arrangem ents that w ould result in
‘the co -ex isten ce o f the low est p ossib le general m ortality w ith the highest
p ossib le individual lo n g ev ity ’ (R ichardson 1876: 11). How ever, he felt
ob liged to break o f f from detailing these to advise the reader that his m odel
town w ould, o f course, be ‘w ell furnished with baths, sw im m ing baths,
Turkish baths, playgrounds, gym nasia, libraries, board sch o o ls, fine art
sch ools, lecture halls, and places o f instructive am usem ent’ (ibid.: 39). The
m useum ’s early historians had a sim ilar conception o f the m useum ’s place
in the new schem es o f urban life. Thus, as Thom as G reenw ood saw it, ‘a
M useum and Free Library are as necessary for the m ental and moral health
o f the citizen s as good sanitary arrangem ents, water supply and street lighting
are for their physical health and co m fo rt’ (G reenw ood 1888: 389). Indeed,
for G reenw ood, these p rovisions tended to go hand-in-hand and could serve
as an index o f the developm ent o f a sen se o f civ ic duty and self-reliance in
different tow ns and cities. For it is, he says, no accident that the m u n i­
cipalities in which ‘the m ost has been done for the education o f the p eop le

18
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

the way o f Board S ch ools, M useum s, or Free Libraries’ should also

either 1П « with ‘the best street lighting and street cleansing arrangem ents’
. be the ones
(ibid - l 8 ^ . c m useum , as is w ell know n, acquired its m odern form during the
^ ^hteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The process o f its form ation
l3te е1? com plex as it w as protracted, involvin g, m ost ob viou sly and im-
lv a transformation o f the practices o f earlier collectin g institutions
me '|h e creative adaptation o f aspects o f other new institutions - the
311 national exhibition and the department store, for exam ple - which
a" 6 loped alongside the m useum . H ow ever, the m u seu m ’s form ation -
w hether understood as a developm ental process or as an achieved form -
c a n n o t be adequately understood unless view ed in the light o f a more general

set of developm ents through w hich culture, in com in g to be thought o f as

useful for governing, was fashioned as a veh icle for the exercise o f new forms
of power. «
In what did this enlistm ent o f culture for the purposes o f governing consist?
And how was the topography o f the sphere o f governm ent to w hich it gave
rise organized? 1 On the one hand, culture - in so far as it referred to the habits,
morals, manners and b eliefs o f the subordinate classes - was targeted as an
object o f governm ent, as som ething in need o f both transform ation and
regulation. This had clearly been view ed as a part o f the proper concern o f
the state in earlier form ulations o f the functions o f p olice. In his T rea tise on
the P olice o f the M etro p o lis, first published in 1795, Patrick C olquhoun had
thus argued:

And it is no inconsiderable feature in the scien ce o f P o lice to encourage,

protect, and con trolsu ch as tend to innocent recreation, to preserve the
good humour o f the Public, and to give the minds o f the people a right
bias. . . . Since recreation is necessary to C ivilised Society, all Public
Exhibitions should be rendered subservient to im provem ent o f m orals,
and to the means o f infusing into the mind a love o f the C onstitution,
and a reverence and respect for the Laws. . . . H ow superior this to
the odious practice o f besotting them selves in A le houses, hatching
seditious and treasonable d esign s, or en gaging in pursuits o f vilest
profligacy, destructive to health and morals.
(Colquhoun 1806: 3 4 7 -8 )

r is’ however, only later - in the m id to late nineteenth century - that the
R a tio n s between culture and governm ent com e to be thought o f and
ftgam zed in a d istinctively m odern w ay via th e^ on cep tio n that the works,
taskT Г institutions ° f high culture m ight be enlisted for this governm ental
was П ein 8.assi§ ned the purpose o f civ ilizin g the population as a w hole. It
a concePr° Priately en ou gh ’ Jarnes Silk Buckingham w ho first introduced such
in e a r ^ v ° n 0,C u ltu re’s role int0 the practical agendas o f reform ing politics
У ictorian England. In the w ake o f the report o f the 1834 Select

19
 HISTORY AND THEORY

C om m ittee on D runkenness, w hose establishm ent he had prompted and whic^

he had chaired, Buckingham brought three b ills before parliament proposin
that local com m ittees be em pow ered to levy rates to establish w a lk s,’paths
playgrounds, halls, theatres, libraries, m useum s and art galleries so as ‘to
draw o f f by innocent pleasurable recreation and instruction, all w ho can be
w eaned from habits o f drinking’ (B uckingham , cited in Turner 1934: 305)
The b ills were not su ccessfu l, although the principles they enunciated were
eventually adapted in the legislation through w hich, som e tw o decades liter
local authorities were enabled to establish m unicipal m useum s and libraries
What matters rather m ore, however, is the capacity that is attributed to
high culture to so transform the inner liv es o f the population as to alter their
form s o f life and behaviour. It is this that marks the distinction between
earlier con ception s o f governm ent and the em erging notions o f liberal
governm ent w hich B uckingham helped articulate. There is scarcely a glim­
mer o f this in C olquhoun’s understanding o f the m eans by w hich the morals
and manners o f the population m ight be im proved. These, for Colquhoun,
focu s on the need to increase the regulatory cap acities o f the state in relation
to those sites and institutions in w hich refractory bodies m ight be expected
to assem ble: public h ou ses, friend ly so c ietie s, and the sex-segregated
asylum s and places o f industry provided for m en and w om en released from
gaol with no em ploym ent.
For Buckingham and other advocates o f ‘rational recreations’, by contrast,
the capacity to effect an inner transformation that is attributed to culture
reflects a different problem atic o f governm ent, one w hich, rather than
increasing the form al regulatory pow ers o f the state, aims to ‘work at a
d ista n ce’, achieving its ob jectives by inscribing these w ithin the self-
activating and self-regulating capacities o f individuals. For Colquhoun, the
ale-house was a space to be regulated as clo sely as possible; for Buckingham,
new form s o f governm ent proceeding by cultural m eans, w hile not obviating
the need for such regulation, w ould go further in producing individuals who
did not w a n t to besot them selves in ale-houses.
It is, then, in the view o f high culture as a resource that m ight be used to
regulate the field o f social behaviour in en d ow ing individuals with new
capacities for self-m onitoring and self-regulation that the field o f culture and
modern form s o f liberal governm ent m ost characteristically interrelate. This
was what G eorge Brow n G oode, in elaborating his view o f m useum s as
‘p assion less reform ers’, was to refer to as ‘the modern M useum id ea ’ in his
influential P rin c ip le s o f M useu m A d m in istra tio n (1895: 71). W hile this ‘idea
had an international currency by the end o f the century, G oode attributed its
conception to the role initially en visaged for m useum s by such mid-nineteenth
century British cultural reform ers as Sir Henry C ole and R uskin.2 For Cole,
for exam p le, the m useum w ould help the w orking man ch o o se a lde
characterized by moral restraint as preferable to the tem ptations o f both bed
and the ale-house:

20
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

w jsh to vanquish D runkenness and the D evil, make G od's day

lf y° U elevating and refining to the working man; don’t leave him to
o f r6hS t r e c r e a t i o n in bed first, and in the public house afterwards; attract

filld '^church or chapel by the earnest and persuasive eloquence o f the

llim 'her restrained with reasonable lim its ;. . . g iv e him m usic in w hich
рГеаС v take his part; show him pictures o f beauty on the w alls o f
h£ m hes and chapels; but, as w e cannot live in church or chapel all
ChUday aive him his park to walk in, with m usic in the air; g iv e him
* * cri'cket ground w hich the martyr, Latimer, advocated; open all
museums o f Science and Art after the hours o f D ivin e service; let the
working man get his refreshm ent there in com pany with his w ife and
children, rather than leave him to b ooze away from them in the Public
house and Gin Palace. The M useum w ill certainly lead him to w isdom
a n d gentleness, and to H eaven, w hilst the latter w ill lead him to brutality

and perdition. -
(C ole 1884, vol. 2: 368)

Of course, and as this passage clearly indicates, m useum s were not alone in
being summoned to the task o f the cultural governance o f the populace. To
the contrary, they were envisaged as functioning alongside a veritable battery
of new cultural technologies designed for this purpose. For G oode, libraries,
parks and reading-room s were just as much ‘p assion less reform ers’ as
museums. And if the form s and institutions o f high culture now found
themselves embroiled in the processes o f governing - in the sense o f being
called on to help form and shape the moral, mental and behaviourial
characteristics o f the population - this w as, depending on the writer, with a
plurality o f aims in view . M useum s m ight help lift the level o f popular taste
and design; they might dim inish the appeal o f the tavern, thus increasing the
sobriety and industriousness o f the populace; they m ight help prevent riot and
sedition.3 W hichever the case, the em broilm ent o f the institutions and prac­
tices of high culture in such tasks entailed a profound transformation in their
conception and in their relation to the exercise o f social and political power.
This is not to say that, prior to their enlistm ent for governm ental pro­
grammes directed at civ iliz in g the population, such institutions had not
a rea у been closely entangled in the organisation o f pow er and its exercise.
У -600, as Roy Strong puts it, ‘the art o f festival was harnessed to the
emergent modern state as an instrument o f ru le’ (Strong 1984: 19). And what
m true op festival w as, or subsequently cam e to be, true o f court
teenfii65, feeatre> and m usical perform ances. By the late seven-
which CentUry fe ese form ed parts o f^ n elaborate perform ance o f power
with e'xhib^0r'3ert (1983) has show n, was concerned first and forem ost
the wo Id аПС* т а 8п*1Узп§ royal pow er before to u t le m o n d e - that is,
Secondaril °^, court*y so ciety - and then, although only indirectly and
У’ ef ° re the populace. If culture w as thus caught up in the

21
 HISTORY AND THEORY

sym bolization o f power, the principal role available to the popular class
- and esp ecially so far as secular form s o f pow er were concerned - W6S
as spectators o f a display o f pow er to which they remained external. T]pS
was also true o f the position accorded them before the scaffold within ^
theatre o f punishm ent. The peop le, so far as their relations to high cultura
form s were concerned, were m erely the w itnesses o f a pow er that was paraded
before them.
In these respects, then, high cultural practices form ed part o f an appafatu
o f pow er w hose conception and functioning were juridico-discursive: that is
as Foiicault defines it, o f a form o f pow er w hich, em anating from a central
source (the sovereign), deployed a range o f legal and sym bolic resources in
order to exact ob ed ien ce from the population.4 O ver the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, by contrast, these practices cam e to be inscribed
in new m odalities for the exercise o f pow er w hich, at different tim es, Foucault
has variously described as^lisciplinary or governm ental pow er.5 Tw o aspects
o f these m odalities o f pow er are esp ecia lly worthy o f note from the point of
view o f m y concerns here.
First, unlike pow er in the juridico-discu rsive m ode, disciplinary or govern­
m ental pow er is not given over to a sin gle function. In his discussion of
M achiavellian con ception s o f the art o f governing, Foucault thus argues that
the prince constitutes a transcendental principle w hich g iv es to the state and
governing a singular and circular function such that all acts are dedicated to
the exercise o f sovereignty - to the m aintenance and extension o f the prince’s
pow er - as an end itself: ‘the end o f sovereignty is the exercise o f sovereignty’
(Foucault 1978: 95). G overnm ental power, by contrast, is characterized by
the m ultiplicity o f ob jectives which it pursues, ob jectives which have their
ow n authorization and rationality rather than being derived from the interests
o f som e unifying central principle o f pow er such as the sovereign or, in later
form ulations, the state. W hereas in these form ulations the state or sovereign
is its ow n finality, governm ental power, in taking as its object the conditions
o f life o f individuals and populations, can be harnessed to the pursuit of
differentiated ob jectives w hose authorization d erives from outside the self-
serving political calculus o f juridico-discu rsive power. A s Foucault puts it,
‘the finality o f governm ent resides in the things it m anages and in the pursuit
o f the perfection and intensification o f the p rocesses which it directs’ (ibid.:
95). N ineteenth-century reform ers thus typically sought to enlist high cultural
practices for a diversity o f ends: as an antidote to drunkenness; an alternative
to riot, or an instrum ent for c iv iliz in g the m orals and manners o f the
population. W hile these uses were often clo sely co-ordinated with bourgeois
class projects, their varied range stood in m arked contrast to the earlier
com m itm ent o f high culture to the singular function o f m aking manifest or
broadcasting the pow er o f the sovereign.
S econd, however, and perhaps m ore important, governm ental power ain18
at a different kind o f effec tiv ity from pow er co n ceiv ed in the j u r i d i c °

22
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

mode. The latter is ex ercised by m eans o f law s, ed icts and

^ supp0rted by whatever m eans o f enforcem ent the prince has
d is c u r s iv e
promulgatl° " al G overnm ental power, however, typ ically works through
at his dlSP]cu lation s and strategies w hich, em bodied in the program m es o f
detailed ^ ch n ologies Qf governm ent, aim at m anipulating behaviour in
speC' ^ d e s ire d directions. The ‘instrum ents o f governm ent,’ as Foucault puts
specihc e ^ b e-ng )aws> now com e to be a range o f m ultiform ta ctics’
it- ‘instea l 9 7 g. 9 5 ) _ and esp ecially o f tactics w hich, in aim ing at changed
(Foucau ^ their outcorne, depend on a clo se relationship betw een the
С0П n m e n t o f the state and the governm ent o f the self. The critical
g° Veiopments affecting the sphere o f culture in these regards concerned the
_ which, o f course, was a relative rather than a total one - from a
V n c e p tio n in which culture served pow er by em bodying, staging or repre­
senting it, m aking it spectacularly visib le. In p lace o f this, culture was
increasingly thought o f as a resource to be used in program m es w hich aimed
at brin g in g about changes in acceptable norms and form s o f behaviour and
co n so lid atin g those norm s as self-actin g im peratives by inscribing them
within bioadly dissem inated itg im e s o f self-m anagem ent.
There are, in this sense, many sim ilarities betw een what was expected o f
the cultural technologies m ost closely associated with this new m odality of
power - the museum and the library, say - and the parallel reshaping o f the
ends and means o f the power to punish. In D isc ip lin e a n d P u n ish (1977),
Foucault argues that late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century penal
reformers condemned the scaffold less on humanitarian grounds than because
they perceived it as part o f a poor econom y o f power: poor because it was
intermittent in its effects, aim ing to terrorize the population into obedience by
means o f periodic representations o f the sovereign’s pow er to punish; poor
because it lacked an effectiv e apparatus for apprehending law-breakers; and
poor because it wasted bodies which m ight otherw ise be rendered useful.
Advocacy o f the penitentiary as the primary form o f punishment was thus
based on what seem ed to be its prom ise o f a more efficient exercise o f power:
more efficient because it was calculated to transform the conduct o f inmates
through the studied manipulation o f their behaviour in an environm ent built
specifically for that purpose. More efficient also, to recall James Silk Bucking-
am, because - albeit via ‘mere technical arrangem ents’ - it aimed at an inner
^ransformation, at the production o f penitents with a built-in and ongoing
pacity to monitor and hence curb their own tendency to wrong-doing:
g ove6 en *'Stment op ^ e institutions and practices o f high culture for
° f с и ? " 6" " ' PurPoses was sim ilarly aim ed at producing a better econom y
theatr'1" ^ P° Wer‘ ^as been noted, festivals, royal entries, tournam ents,
served as m eans (am ong other
^ i n g M f o 6^ 0™ 311068 and thC Hke had ali
Power b °f Per'od'c ~ and henc,o interm ittent and irregular - display o f
re4uired at°aH ^ popu*a ce‘ Preser|ce o f the p eop le - w here it was
a - was called for only in so far as the representation o f power
23
 HISTQRY AND THEORY

required that there be an audience b efore w hom such representations mi u 1

be displayed. Transform ations in the character, manners, m orals, or aptitu^
o f the population were rarely the point at issue w ithin such strategic
of
culture and power. The governm entalization o f culture, by contrast, aim
p recisely at more enduring and lasting effects by using culture as a resour
through w hich those exp osed to its influence w ould be led to o n g o i n g ^
p rogressively m odify their thoughts, feelin g s and behaviour.
The inscription o f cultural form s and practices w ithin new te c h n o lo g y '
rather than in volvin g the population only interm ittently, aim ed at permanent
and developm ental and regular and repeatable effects and thus involved
significantly new econom y o f cultural power. This also offered the populace
a more active and differentiated set o f roles than m erely as w itnesses of a
sym bolic display o f pow er (although this remained important - and more so
than F oucault’s form ulations often allow ). To the contrary, culture, in this
new lo g ic, com prised a set o f exercises through w hich those exposed to its
influence were to be transformed into the active bearers and practitioners of
the capacity for self-im provem Snt that culture w as held to em body. Enlisting
the ex istin g form s, practices and institutions o f high culture for such
purposes, however, required that they be instrum entally refashioned, retooled
for new purposes. N ineteenth-century cultural reform ers were resolutely
clear-eyed about this. Culture, in its ex istin g form s, could not sim ply be made
available and be exp ected to discharge its reform ing obligations o f its own
and unaided. It needed to be fashioned for the tasks to which it was thus
sum m oned and be put to work in new contexts sp ecia lly designed for those
purposes.
In the case o f m useum s, three issues stood to the fore. The first concerned
the nature of~the m useum as a social space and the need to detach that space
from its earlier private, restricted and so cia lly ex clu siv e form s o f sociality.
The m useum had to be refashioned so that it might function as a space of
em ulation in which civ iliz ed form s o f behaviour m ight be learnt and thus
d iffused more w idely through the so cia l body. The second concerned the
nature o f the m useum as a space o f representation. Rather than merely
evoking w onder and surprise for the idly curious, the m useum ’s representa­
tions w ould so arrange and display natural and cultural artefacts as to secure
‘the utilisation o f these for the increase o f k now ledge and for the culture and
enlightenm ent o f the p eo p le’ (G oode 1895: 3). ‘The m useum o f the past,’ as
G oode put it in an 1889 lecture to the Brooklyn Institute, ‘must be set aside,
reconstructed, transformed into a nursery o f liv in g thought’ (cited in Key
1973: 86). The third issue, by contrast, related more to the m useum ’s visitor
than to its exhibits. It concerned the need to develop the m useum as a space
o f observation and regulation in order that the v isito r’s body m ight be taken
hold o f and be m oulded in accordance w ith the requirem ents o f new norms
o f public conduct.
In what fo llo w s, I shall consider each o f these issu es in turn. A l t h o u g h , 0

24

I
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF T H E M U S E U M 1
in which these matters w ere addressed differed from one
.u p
course. 111 tQ another, as they did also betw een different types o f
national c° shaj] by and large, overlook such considerations in order to
fliuseUin’ m’ost ob viou sly shared characteristics w hich distinguished
identlfy ' seums from their predecessors.
public m

M U S E U M S A N D TH E P U B L IC S P H E R E

anization o f the social space o f the museum occurred alongside the

The reorg role o f m useum s in the form ation o f the bourgeois public sphere,
^ ^ in stitu tio n s com prising this sphere had already partially detached high
I ' al f o r m s and practices from their functions o f courtly display and
^ n n e c t e d th e m to new social and political purposes. If, under feudal and
C° archical system s o f governm ent, art and culture form ed a part, as
H a b erm a s p u ts it, o f the ‘representative p u b licn ess’ o f the lord or sovereign,
the fo rm a tio n o f the bourgeois public sphere was clo sely bound up with the
developm ent o f new institutions and practices which detached art and culture
from that function and enlisted itrfor the cause o f social and political critique
(H aberm as 1989). This helped prepare the ground for the subsequent view
that the s p h e r e o f culture m ight be reorganized in accordance w ith a
g ov ernm en tal logic.
The picture Habermas paints o f the relations betw een different spheres o f
social and political life and influence in late eighteenth-century European
societies is, roughly, one characterized by a d ivision betw een the state and
the court on the one hand and, on the other, civ il so ciety and the sphere o f
private intimacy formed by the n ew ly constituted conjugal fam ily. M ediating
the relations between these w as an array o f new literary, artistic and cultural
institutions in which new form s o f assem bly, debate, critique and com m ent­
ary were developed. In the process, works o f art and literature were fashioned
so as to serve as the veh icles for a reasoned critique o f the edicts o f the state.
These institutions com prised, on the one hand, literary journals, philosophical
and debating societies (som etim es with m useum s attached), and co ffe e
ouses where the accent fell on the form ation o f opinions via a process o f
rational exchange and debate. On the other, they also included the new
cu tural markets (academ ies, art galleries, salons) w hich, in their separation
ancT' 0t^ C0Urt anc* stale>allow ed the form ative bourgeois public to m eet
« и / Ш гспс*ег'п 8 itself visu ally present to itself, acquire a degree o f corporate
self-consciousness 6
The
Consiste(jUCIa* C*'SCUrs've even ts accom panying these institutional changes
which H- h'1 t*1C еаг'У form ation o f art and literary criticism , a develbpm ent
the latte^ f.rmaS 'n turn attributes to the com m odification o f culture. For if
°nly b; : , am 0Wed cu 'tura* products to be m ade generally available, it did so
traditior|S1Ih U^itaneously detaching those products from their anchorage in a
lc Previously vouchsafed their m eaning. A s works o f culture

* 25
 HIST. ORY A N D T H E O R Y

no longer derived their m eaning from their place within an authoritatjv

tradition em anating from the monarch (or church), the process o f arriving 6
a m eaning and a value for cultural products w as a task which boum'eoat
consum ers had now to undertake for th em selves, both individually and -S
debate, in collaboration with one another. They were assisted in ji^la
however, by the n ew ly flourishing genres o f cultural criticism and comment
ary through w hich questions o f aesthetic m eaning and judgem ent came
form parts o f a proto-political process whereby acts o f state were subjected
to reasoned debate and criticism .7
For Habermas, o f course, this critical deploym ent o f art and culture served
as an ideal-—albeit an im perfectly realized one - in w hose name the subsequent
developm ent o f the debased public sphere o f m ass culture could be castigated
for the loss o f the critical function for culture w hich it entailed. There are
however, other w ays o f construing the matter. In his reflections on the role of
technology in cultural production, Benjam in argued that the development of
m ass reproduction played a crucial role in p oliticizin g art to the degree that
in depriving the work o f art erf its aura and thus detaching it from the singular
function and identity associated with it em beddedness in tradition, its meaning
could b ecom e an object o f political contestation (Benjam in 1936). The
argument is a fam iliar one within the Frankfurt tradition up to and including
Habermas, albeit that the responsibility for freeing art from the restraints of
tradition may be variously attributed to technology, the market, criticism, or
all three. B y the sam e token, the sam e conditions, in freeing high cultural
form s from their earlier juridico-discursive form s o f deploym ent, also made
it p ossib le for them to be thought o f as useful for governing.
H owever, this required that the con d itions regulating culture’s social
deploym ent w ithin the bourgeois public sphere should them selves be trans­
form ed. So far as the m useum was concerned, tw o matters stand to the fore
here. The first concerns the reversal o f the tendency towards separation and
social ex clu siv en ess w hich had characterized the earlier form ation of the
bourgeois public sphere. It w ill be helpful to consider this issue in the light
o f a longer historical perspective.
It is true, o f course, that the secular co llec tin g practices o f European
princes and monarchs in the post-R enaissance period had not usually played
a major role in sym b olizin g the m onarch’s pow er b efore and to the popular
classes. ‘It is,’ as Gerard Turner puts it, ‘part o f the exercise and maintenance
o f any leader’s pow er to ensure that his im age is constantly before the people
w ho count.’ A s he continues, however, in the past ‘this has not, o f course,
been the m ass o f the population, but rather the ruler’s im m ediate supporters,
the courtiers and nobility, and his rivals in other sta tes’ (Turner 1985: 214)'
O bviously, there were excep tions and, in the course o f the eighteenth century,
these tended to m ultiply as a number o f royal co llectio n s were made publicly
a ccessib le, usually as parts o f statist con ception s o f popular instruction-
Even so, w e should not m istake these for exam ples o f the public museum

26
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

in that the form o f pow er they instanced and exercised was

aVant la ^ ^ ridico-d iscu rsive rather than governm ental. Thus w hen, in
still clear 0 f Francesco I de M edici was transferred into the new
1584, the со cont£Xt o f the u ffiz i G allery, this was in response to the need
and mote P“ .m atio0 o f the M edici dynasty, a need w hich, as G uiseppe
for public ■:meant that (he g iorifiCation o f the prince, the celebration o f his
ОШп puts l , er o f hjs farnjiy had constantly to be exposed to the eyes
deed|S nd to be im pressed on the mind o f every su bject’ (O lm i 1985: 10).
°f he main, however, collection s o f valued objects form ed a part o f the
1П 1 ^accessories o f pow er in contexts in which it was the organization and
CUl'UrJission o f power w ithin and betw een ruling strata rather than the display
'ranS wer before the populace that was the point at issue. C onsequently, few
coUections were accessible to the popular classes; and, in som e cases, those
who mieht be admitted to view princely collection s were so few that they
symbolized not so much the pow er to am ass artefacts which m ight be
impressively displayed to others as the pow er to reserve valued objects for
private and exclu sive inspection (see S eelig 1985).
Museums continued to be characterized by sim ilar kinds o f ex clu siv en ess
during the period o f their articulation to the institutions com prising the
bourgeois public sphere. For, whether they were older m useum s annexed to
the public sphere or new ones built in association with literary, debating,
scientific or philosophical societies, a ccess to them continued to be so cia lly
restricted.8 Habermas touches on these matters in his com m ents concerning
the class and gender characteristics o f the institutions com prising the
bourgeois public sphere. H is concern in d oing so, however, is largely to point
to the conflict between the theoretical com m itm ent to the universalist and
equitably dialogic principles o f discourse w hich characterized these institu­
tions and their practical lim itation to m iddle-class men as a m eans o f retaining
the view that such discursive norms m ight yet be realized in a more ideal
speech situation.
As Stallybrass and W hite have su ggested , however, the social lo g ic o f the
ourgeois public sphere is not adequately understood if attention fo cu ses
so ely on its discursive properties. The institutions com prising this sphere
^ere characterized not m erely by their subscription to certain rules o f
chaCr°UrSe ^ reec^om sPe e ch, the rule o f reason, etc.). They were also
Places'T '26^ ^ ^ е 'Г Proscr'Pt'on ° f cod es o f behaviour associated with
spittin ° '3° pu*ar assernbly-fairs, taverns, inns and so forth. N o sw earing, no
these ru le ° ^raw^’n®’ no eating or drinking, no dirty footwear, no gam bling:
'es, muse^ w ’t*1 variations, characterized literary and debating societ-
‘pan 0f- . ^ S’ 3nd c o t,e e "houses also, as Stallybrass and W hite put it, form ed
c°sm opolita° h61-3*1 Strate®y exp u lsion which clears a space for polite,
the dirty and 'SC0Urse constructing popular culture as the “ low -O th er”,
^ h ite 1986- 87^ ° ou ts'^e to the em ergent public sp h ere’ (Stallybrass and

%
27
 HISTORY AND THEORY

The construction o f the public sphere as one o f p olite and ratio

discourse, in other words, required the construction o f a negatively C0(1
other sphere - that com prised o f p laces o f popular assem bly - from which •
m ight be differentiated. If the institutions o f the public sphere cornpris
places in which its m em bers could assem ble and, indeed, recognize theirf
selves as belonging to the same public, this was only because o f the rule
w hich excluded participation by those w ho - in their bodily appearances and
manners - were v isib ly d ifferent.9
The m id-nineteenth-century reconceptualization o f m useum s as cultural
resources'that m ight be deployed as governm ental instruments involving the
w hole population thus entailed a significant revaluation o f earlier cultural
strategies. In the earlier phase, the rules and proscriptions governing attend­
ance at m useum s had served to distinguish the bourgeois public from the
rough and raucous manners o f the general populace by exclu din g the latter
By contrast, the m u seu m ’s new con ception as an instrument o f public
instruction en visaged it as, ir? its new op en ness, an exem plary space in which
the rough and raucous m ight learn to c iv iliz e them selves by m odelling their
conduct on the m idd le-class cod es o f behaviour to w hich m useum attendance
w ould exp ose them. The m useum , in its Enlightenm ent conception, had, of
course, alw ays been an exem plary space, and con stitutively so. A s Anthony
V idler argues, the didactic function attributed to it meant that the objects it
housed were invested with an exem plary status (V idler 1987: 1 6 5 -7 ). To be
rendered serviceable as a governm ental instrument, then, the public museum
attached to this exem plary didacticism o f objects an exem plary didacticism
o f personages in arranging for a regulated com m ingling o f cla sses such that
the subordinate cla sses m ight learn, by im itation, the appropriate forms of
dress and com portm ent exhibited by their social superiors.
This, at least, w as the theory. In practice, m useum s, and especially art
galleries, have often been effec tiv e ly appropriated by social elites so that,
rather than functioning as institutions o f h om ogenization, as reforming
thought had en visaged , they have continued to play a significant role in
differentiating elite from popular so cia l cla sses. Or perhaps it w ould be better
to say that the m useum is neither sim p ly a h om ogen izin g nor simply a
d ifferentiating institution: its socia l fun ction ing, rather, is defined by the
contradictory pulls betw een these tw o tendencies. Yet, how ever imperfectly
it may have been realized in practice, the conception o f the m useum as an
institution in w hich the working cla sses - provided they dressed nicely and
curbed any tendency towards unseem ly conduct - might be exposed to the
im proving influence o f the m iddle cla sses was crucial to its construction as
a new kind o f social space.
There was also a gendered aspect to this refashioning o f the so cia l space
o f the m useum . Joan Landes (1988 ) and D enise R iley (1988) have demon
strated the respects in w hich, in France and Britain respectively, the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries w itnessed a deep and f a r - r e a c h i n g

28
»
THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

f w o m e n ’s involvem ent in public and political life and a parallel

reduction 01 o f fem ininity in which w om en were made to em body a
n a tu ra li^ 10^ ' conception o f the natural.10 In R iley ’s argument, this natural-
£ousseaue^ ornen preparecl the g roun(j f0 r the subsequent em ergence o f the
Ration 0 0f population m anagement in which the naturalized virtues of
social as * ^ accorded a key role in redressing social problems identified
the felT""1tnheeir provenance in the conditions (housing, hygiene, m orality, etc.)
ashaVingfamily life- ‘This new production o f “ the so c ia l’” , as R iley puts it,
affecting^ magnificent OCcasion for the rehabilitation o f “ w om en”. In its very
(T 2 conceptions, it was fem inised; in its detail, it provided the chances
|оиПо т е women to enter upon the work o f restoring other, more damaged,
f°omen to a newly con ceived sphere o f grace’ (R iley 1988: 48).
W°The consequences o f w om en’s naturalization for the cultural sphere were
somewhat similar. In an important reappraisal o f H aberm as’s conception o f
the public sphere, Joan Landes, with the French context primarily in mind,
views wom en’s exclusion from this sphere as part o f a cultural-political tactic
that ‘promised to reverse the sp oiled civilisation o f le m o n d e w here stylish
women held sway and to return to m en the sovereign rights usurped by an
absolutist monarch’ (Landes 1992: 56). The redefinition o f fem ininity that
accompanied this process in associatin g w om en with the spheres o f the
natural and the dom estic, and with the functions o f nurturing and growth,
prepared the way for a redefinition o f w om en ’s role in the cultural sphere.
Women no longer appeared as the dom ineering m istresses o f the world o f
salons but, rather, in the gu ise o f cu lture’s gentle handm aidens.
It was, then, just as important that, in their new conception as public
institutions, museums were equally accessib le to m en and w om en. This had
not always been so, and even where w om en had been admitted, their presence
was not always w elcom ed. An eighteenth-century German visitor to the
Ashmolean Museum thus com plained that ‘even the w om en are allow ed up
here for sixpence: they run here and there, grabbing at everything and taking
no rebutt from the S u b -C u sto s’ (cited in M acGregor 1983: 62). By the early
nineteenth century, however, w om en were perm itted - and som etim es
encouraged - to attend m useum s in a way that distinguished this com ponent
liter-S k ° UrHe o 's public sphere from the co ffee -h o u se s, acad em ies, and
this^1^^.^111^ C*e ^at*n§ so cieties which were still largely reserved for men. In
° f p u b l^ ' museums belonged, as Linda M ahood has show n, to a select range
from thc'C C° ntexts (Parks, shopping arcades) w hich, in being differentiated
PopulUnre8Ulated sexua^com m ingling associated with fairs and other sites
ассощр. Г Г т Ы У’ resPe c table w om en were able to attend - but only if
It Was y ^ е 'г m enfolk or if chaperoned (M ahood 1990).
st°re that Г УеГ' W't^‘n the com m ercially provided space o f the department
sPace (see р ^ т ? П ^ouncl their first custom -built, sin g le-sex , urban public
hePartrnent D esigned m ainly by men but with w om en in mind,
ores allow ed women to enjoy the am enities o f urban sociability

» 29
 HISTORY AND THEORY

w ithout being threatened by the disturbing sights o f the street scene which
1
had form ed a part o f the scopic pleasures o f the m ale fla n e u r and wjth0
courting the associations that were attached to w om en w ho frequented к*
public world o f m ale pleasure. The department store, as Judith W alko • 6
puts it, offered a space in w hich ‘w om en safely reim agined them selves *
fla n e u rs, ob serving w ithout being o b serv ed ’ (W alkow itz 1992: 48) g 3s
it w as more than that. In putting aside spaces reserved ex clu siv ely for worne
the department store provided an en clave within w hich w om en could ‘mimj
the arts o f urban m ingling without incurring the risks o f the world outside'
(Ryan 1990: 76). It also created a precedent w hich public authorities were
not slow to follow in providing special places for w om en in public places and
institutions: special reading-room s in public libraries; special compartments
for w om en on ferries; w om en’s room s in city halls and post offices. The
con seq u en ce w as the organization o f an urban space w hich had been
‘sa n itized ’ through the provision o f locales in which respectable women
could recreate them selves in public free from fear that their sensibilities
m ight be assaulted or their conduct be m isinterpreted. This, in turn, paved
the w ay for the c iv iliz in g strategy o f attracting m en away from places of
raucous m ale assem bly and ushering them ‘into public spaces that had been
sanitised by the presence o f w om en ’ (ibid.: 79).
It is in the light o f these broader changes that w e need to consider the role
played by gender in the constitution o f the space o f the public museum. For,
in so far as it w as en visaged as a reform atory o f manners, the complex
relations betw een the cross-class and cross-gender form s o f com m ingling the
m useum allow ed for are crucial to an understanding o f the types of be-
haviourial reform ations it was to effec t and o f the m eans by which it was to
do so. The m ost interesting developm ent here con sisted in the organization
o f a role for the w orking-class w om an as a m ediating agent helping to pass
on the im proving influence o f m idd le-class culture to the recalcitrant working-
class man.
Consideration o f the parallel and com plem entary strategies o f class regu­
lation associated with department stores w ill help both to make the point and
to underline the sp ecificity o f the m useum ’s aim s and practices in this regard.
The sim ilarities betw een the m useum and the department store have often
been n o te d .11 Both were form ally open spaces allow in g entry to the general
public, and both were intended to function as spaces o f em ulation, places for
m im etic practices w hereby im proving tastes, values and norms o f conduct
were to be more broadly diffused through society. The B on M a rch e in ParlS
thus offered, as M ichael M iller puts it, ‘a vision o f a bourgeois life-style that
becam e a m odel for others to f o llo w ’ (M iller 1981: 183). This was, in Partl
a function o f the good s on sale. In offering a version o f the lifestyle of the
Parisian h a u te -b o u rg e o isie that w as w ithin the reach o f the m iddle classes
and that the upper ech elon s o f the working cla sses could aspire to, the B °n
M arch e served as an important instrument o f social hom ogenization at the

30

J
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

and dom estic decor. However, the influence o f the department

leVe l s ° f dreuSrSther than this. In the person o f the sales assistant it supplied a
store went J1 j transform ed appearances and conduct on which the socially
|iving T m ieht m odel them selves.
aspirant 6 ^ a delicate matter, it w as also very m uch a gendered matter
Y e '.l f ' sales assistant was typically fem ale, so, too, was the customer,
too. F°r 1 B enson’s exam ination o f the relations betw een gender and
S u sa n P°!. partment stores tellingly describes the com p lex dialectic between
power in ^ (hat was played out in the relations betw een sales assistants
c l a s s an ge B enson 1979, 1988). Much as w as true o f the m useum ,
j {’ ll S t O n 'l c i a
аП i . ' rtment store w as subject to contradictory im peratives. On the one
the /^ n e e d e d to mark itself o ff from the rough and the vulgar as a zone o f
1 vity and privilege if it were to retain the custom o f bourgeois wom en.
On the other hand, it needed to reach a broader buying public - partly in order
realize appropriate econ om ies o f scale in its operations but also as a
necessary means o f influencing popular tastes, values and behaviour. W hile
there were many different w ays in w hich these tensions were m anaged,12 the
point at which they were m ost acutely m anifest was in the groom ing o f the
sales assistant who, in being typftally recruited from the store’s local working-
class environs, needed her rough ed ges sm oothing in order to be rendered ‘fit
to s e r v e ’ the bourgeois c lie n te le .13 Yet it was equally important that this
grooming should not be carried too far. Should her dress and dem eanour
become too refined, the sales assistant w ould threaten that distinction betw een
herself and her custom er on which the latter’s sense o f her own superiority
depended. Equally, though, the sales assistant did have to be distanced from
her class o f origin sufficiently for her to em body higher standards on which
the aspirant w orking-class custom er m ight m odel herself.
As a consequence o f the need to balance these com peting requirem ents,
the body and person o f the sales assistant were targeted for quite intense and
detailed regulation. In part, it was en visaged that, just as she w ould com e to
constitute a model for the w orking-class customer, so the sales girl would
erself simply learn new w ays from observing the behaviour o f both her
supervisors and those o f her custom ers w ho were o f higher social position.
how*6 natUral c 'v 'l'z 'ng effects o f the department store environm ent,
lessons^ Were augm ented by active civ iliz in g program m es -
'о асаS Ш *1^ ' cn e’ et'quette and grammar; visits to m useum s and art galleries
'through pr'n°'P*es op taste; 'he provision o f w ell-stock ed reading rooms
as a livf W 'C*1 sa^es assistant was groom ed both to serve and to function
11 then tte/ it'm ony cultural im provem ent,
were direct1 ^ c 'vd lzin g programmes associated with the department store
Hineteenth^ ^ Ша'п1У at w om en, there is little doubt that, in the mid-
reforming intent*^- context, the primary target o f the m u seu m ’s
h Was the w^ ^ vvor*<in8 'c lass m an. As the m useum ’s advocates saw
or tng-class man who needed to be attracted away from the

„ 31
 HISTORY AND THEORY

corrupting pleasures o f fair or tavern in a reform ing strategy which s

constantly to recruit, or at least to en visage, the w orking-class w ife as an
o f culture’s advocates. L lo y d s’ response to the opening o f the S h eep S|, ^
G allery in the V ictoria and Albert M useum in 1858 w as, no doubt, a p ie c ^
fond im agining, but it was typical o f the period: e °f

The anxious w ife w ill no longer have to visit the different taprooms to
drag her poor besotted husband hom e. She w ill seek for him at the I
nearest m useum , where she w ill have to exercise all the persuasion of
her affection to"tear him away from the rapt contem plation o f a Raphael
(Cited in Physik 1982: 35)

If, however, the w orking-class w om an w as en visaged as a beneficiary 0f

culture’s reform atory pow ers, she w as also enlisted as an accom plice of thos
pow ers, as a cog in cu lture’s m echanism s. This w as, in part, a matter of the
m useum functioning, like the department store, as a learning environment in
w hich bourgeois con ception s o f fem ininity and dom esticity might be trans­
m itted to w orking-class w om en. Equally important, however, such norms
then served as m odels through which the tastes o f the working man might be
im proved. In the m useum projects o f Ruskin and M orris, reconstructions of
the ideal hom e - fashioned on the bourgeois interior, but supposedly within
the econ om ic reach o f the artisan - were thus the primary m eans through
w hich the working man was to be led to ‘better th in g s’.
M ore generally, however, w om en were held to exert a civ ilizin g influence
through their mere presence in both em bodying and enjoining a gentleness
o f manners. This con ception , m oreover, w as not lim ited to w om en’s partici­
pation in m useum s. Peter B ailey has show n how - as a recurring trope through
the literature o f the rational recreations m ovem ent in Britain - women are
en visaged as a civ ilizin g influence on m en. Robert Slane, extollin g the virtues
o f public parks, thus opined:

A man w alking out with his fam ily am ong his neighbours o f different
ranks, w ill naturally be desirous to be properly clothed, and that his
w ife should be also; but this desire duly directed and controlled, is
found by experience to be o f the m ost pow erful effect in promoting
C ivilisation and excitin g industry.
(Cited in B ailey 1987: 53)

Similarly, in her d iscussion o f the early public library m ovem ent in America.
D ee Garrison has shown how w om en were often thought o f as more suited to
library work than men ow ing to their ability to ‘soften the atm osphere’ in whto
culture was called on to perform its reformatory labours (see Garrison 19' '
The sam e was true o f teaching, and especially o f the role accorded w omen
the teaching o f English (see D oyle 1989). The specific position accor
w om en in these different cultural apparatuses, o f course, varied. M u s e u m s,
exam ple, did not develop into spheres o f em ploym ent for w om en along

32

»
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE MU S E U M

' A m e ri c a , l i b ra ri e s did; th e a u th o r it a ti v e v o ic e o f the m u s e u m

same lineS aS’ d o g i c a l l y m a l e . N o n e th e les s, th e r e w a s a c o m m o n p a t t e r n in
remained 171011 jn b e in g w e l c o m e d ou t o f th e ‘s e p a r a te s p h e r e ’ o f d o m e s t i c i t y
which w onien n a tu r a liZa ti o n h a d e a r l i e r c o n f i n e d th e m , w e r e a c c o r d e d a role
t0 which thel^lt|"ibu tes a s s o c ia te d w ith th a t s p h e r e w e re e n l i s t e d fo r r e f o r m a t -
jn which the a^ c u l t u r e *s i n s t r u m e n t s r a t h e r th a n its ta r g e ts ,
cry PurPoseS

TH E R E O R D E R I N G OF T H I N G S

s r e c r u it e d for a civilizin g task, the position accorded w om en within

Whdet us conception 0 f civilization as a process w as more am bivalent,
the museUouch ^ ^ second transformation o f available cultural resources
Th's 1S (ices associated with the public m useum ’s form ation: the fashioning
3f a new space o f representation which, in providing a new context for display
o H h e value d objects inherited from previous co llec tio n s, allow ed those
°b'ects to be h a r n e s s e d to new social purposes. In the period o f absolutism ,
Habermas a rg u e s , all major form s o f display, including those associated with
collections, served to fashion a representative publicness for the prince: that
is, to en h an c e the prince’s pow er by sym b olically m agnifying it in the public
domain. In th e course o f the nineteenth century, the m useum ’s space o f
representation com es to be reorganized through the use o f historicized
principles o f d is p la y which, in the figure o f ‘m an’ w hich they fashioned,
yielded a democratic form o f public representativeness, albeit one which
organized its o w n hierarchies and exclu sion s.
What kind o f a change w as this? The em ergence- o f historicized principles
of display associated with, the form ation o f the modern public m useum was
part of the more general transition Foucault has traced from the cla ssica l to
the modern epistem e. Yet the m useum ’s sem iotic recoding o f the artefactual
field was also shaped by, and contributed to, the task o f using cultural
resources in new ways and for new purposes that w as associated with the
development o f liberal form s o f governm ent. V iew ed in this light, I shall
suggest, the m useum ’s reordering o f things needs to be seen as an event that
was sim ultaneously epistem ic and governm ental. To d evelop this argument
the ^Uate*^' ^owever’ w '4 require that w e pay attention to the ways in which
museum s new field o f representations, as w ell as functioning sem iotic-
anH K) i.0V^ et* 3 Perf ° rrnative environm ent in which new form s o f conduct
As befV' ° Ur C° U*d s*la Pe d and practised.
In his d '°re' '*• W'^ conver|lent 10 take our initial cue here from Habermas.
Private in ^ h ^ '011 ^ re*at'ons betw een the fields o f the public and the
'n contrast1 6 latC m ed’eva' ancl еаПу m odern periods, Habermas notes that,
'bat of tbet0 Present-day usage, the field o f the public was distinguished from
association with*111011 ЗП^ оп^'пагУ 'n referring to that w hich, through its
a rePresent t' ^ersons ° f high status, w as deem ed worthy o f being accorded
3 Publicness. As Habermas. quoting Carl Schm itt, puts it:

33
 «IS T O R Y AND THEORY

For representation pretended to make som ething in visib le

v isib le
through the public presence o f the person o f the lord: . someth'
that has no life, that is inferior, w orthless, or m ean, is not representabl^
It lacks the exalted sort o f being suitable to be elevated into pubh
status, that is, into existen ce. Words like ex c ellen ce, h ighn ess, maiest ^
fam e, dignity, and honour seek to characterise this peculiarity o f a bei
that is capable o f representation.
(Haberm as 1989: 5)
Under the absolutism o f Louis XIV, this principle had, as its correlate
requirement that everything associated with the monarch should be deemed
representable, as o f public significance. Louis Marin, in his vivid dissect'
o f a proposal for a history o f the king, thus show s how, since the life and acts
o f the king were taken to be с о -exten sive with those o f the state, this histor
had to be a total one - a history that ‘admits o f no remainder . . . [and] is also
a space o f total visib ility and o f absolute representability’ (Marin 1988: 71)
To suppose otherw ise, Marin continues, w ould be to ‘admit a “corner” 0f
the royal universe where a k ingly act, w ord, or thought w ould not be
representable, w ould not be praisable, w ould not be sayable in the form of
narrative-praise’ (ibid.: 71). Since this w ould be to think the unthinkable of
an absolutism that w as no longer absolute, a history o f the king could only
be im agined as one in which the king w as both "the archactor o f History and
the metanarrator o f his narrative’ (ibid.: 72). A history that would be the
accom plice o f absolutism must see the king everyw here and in everything,
the m oving force o f all that happens, and it m ust tell the story o f history as
the unfolding o f the m onarch's self-originating activity from the monarch's
point o f view . S ince this is the source o f all illum ination, it offers the only
vantage point from which h isto ry ’s unfolding can p ossib ly be understood.
The royal historiographer must write constantly both in His M ajesty’s service
and from his side:
To see the historical event at the place o f the king, to be placed in this
supreme - or alm ost - p osition, is to see the com ing o f History itself,
sin ce the king is its unique agent. And sin ce the gaze o f the absolute
master sends the light that g iv e s sight and produces what is to be seen,
to be present at his side is to participate in his gaze and to share, in a
fashion, his power: to double and substitute for him in the narrative-to-
com e that this past presence not only authenticates but permits and
authorises.
(Marin 1988: 73)
Sim ilar principles were evident in the royal co llectio n s w hich, at varying
points in the eighteenth century, were m ade more a ccessib le to b r o a ^
section s o f the population: the V ien n ese R oyal C ollection , m oved into
B elvedere Palace in 1776, and the Dresden G allery are am ong the nl ^
fam ous exam ples. T hese were not public m useum s in the modern sense.

34
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

ness proved, more often than not, to be qualified by all kinds

theoretical °^estrjctions just as the collection s they housed rem ained royal
0f practical,l!rSthan being ow ned by the state on beh alf o f the peop le. Even
p r o p e l ra ^ ent o f r0y ai collection s in new public or quasi-public contexts
s0, the PlaCC. ificant transformation in the spheres o f v isib ility they formed
involved a Mg ^ ^ -n the re]ations Qf visib ility to w hich they gave rise.
a part of as pom ian’s analysis o f the p henom en ological structure o f col-
fcrzysz ° f u n illum inates these matters. A ll collectio n s, Pomian argues,
l ec t i ons us ^ ^ org anizing an exchange betw een the fields o f the v isib le and

are inV<is^ble which they establish (Pom ian 1990). What can be seen on
th£ ’" i s viewed as valuable and m eaningful because o f the a ccess it offers
diSPlarealm o f significance w hich cannot itse lf be seen. The v isib le is
10 3 ficant not for its own sake but because it affords a glim pse o f som ething
Slgnl d itself: the order o f nature, say, in the case o f eighteenth-century
^atural history .co lle ctio n s.14 L ooked at in this light, Pom ian su ggests,
collections can be distinguished from one another in terms o f the ways in
which their classification and arrangement o f artefacts, the settings in which
these are placed, etc., serve both to refer to a realm o f significance that is
invisible and absent (the past, say) and to m ediate the v isito r’s or spectator’s
access to that realm by m aking it m etonym ically v isib le and present.
It has to be added, however, that collection s on ly function in this manner
for those w ho p o s s e s s the appropriate so cially-cod ed w ays o f seein g - and,
in some cases, power to see - w hich allow the objects on display to be not
just seen but seen th rough to establish som e com m union with the invisible
to which th ey beckon. C ollection s can therefore also be differentiated from
one ano ther in terms o f w ho has a ccess to the p ossib ility of, and capacity for,
the kinds o f double-levelled vision that are called for if the contract they
establish between the visib le and the in visib le is to be entered into.
Pierre Bourdieu’s critique o f the m odern art gallery is a case in point. The
art gallery’s capacity to function as an instrum ent o f social distinction
depends on the fact that only those with the appropriate kinds o f cultural
capital can both see the paintings on display and se e th ro u g h them to perceive
e hidden order o f art which subtends their arrangement. However, sim ilar
lateCeSSeS аГе ^’scernible ln relation to other collection s. In a recent study o f
the6 nineteent*1'century colonial m useum s in India, Prakash sh ow s how, in
elitePr0CeS'S. neg°tiating a privileged relation to the im perial power, Indian
distinguish ^ е8С m useum s t° claim a ‘second sig h t’ w hich served to
o b jects^ ,ttlern Prom ^literate peasantry w ho failed to see through the
on w h il" ’Splay t0 unc!e rstand the organizing principles o f W estern scien ce
An acc reSted (Prakash I " 2 )-
the chan"11 °* ^ museum s form ation must therefore include an account
different s t a '^ ,0rm s anc* s°cia l relations o f visib ility associated with the
which were *tS ^ev el0 Pm ent- The s tu d io li o f R enaissance princes,
mong the more important precursors o f the royal co llectio n s o f

35
 HISTORY AND THEORY

absolutist regim es, reserved this pow er for doub le-levelled vision exclus
to the prince. Indeed, the significance o f this pow er was underscored ' lyl
production o f a d ivision w ithin the field o f the v isib le such that one leve)^
this was not open to inspection. T ypically com prising a sm all, window) °f
room w hose location in the palace w as often secret, the w alls o f a stud
h o u s e d c u p b o a r d s w h o s e c o n t e n t s s y m b o l i z e d th e o r d e r o f th e c o s m o s Ti,
. . . . • 'nese
cupboards and the objects they contained were arranged around a
ventral
point o f inspection w hose occupancy w as reserved for the prince
stu d io lo , as G iuseppe Olm i has put it, form ed ‘an attempt to reappr0 nr- 6
and reassem ble all reality in m iniature, to constitute a place from the cent
o f w hich the prince could sym b olically reclaim dom inion over the entir
natural and artificial w orld ’ (Olm i 1985: 5). The real distinctiveness of the
stu d io lo , however, con sisted in the fact that the doors o f the cupboards
containing the objects were closed . ‘Their presence, and their meaning’ as
Eilean H ooper-G reenhill puts it, ‘w as indicated through the sym bolic images
painted on the cupboard d oors’ (H ooper-G reenhill 1992: 106). The sphere
o f the actually v isib le (the paintings on the doors) m ediated the prince’s
e x clu siv e access to the, in principle, v isib le but, in practice, in visib le contents
o f those cupboards - and thence to the order o f the cosm os which those
contents represented. To the degree that this doubly m ediated access to the
order o f the cosm os w as available only to the prince, the stu d io lo embodied
a p o w er-k n ow led ge relation o f a very particular kind in that it ‘reserved to
the prince not only the k now ledge o f the world constituting his supremacy,
but the p ossib ility o f know ing its e lf’ (ibid.: 106).
W hen, in the eighteenth century, royal co llectio n s were translated into
more public dom ains, this in volved a transform ation in their functioning for
the objects they contained then assum ed the function o f embodying a
representative publicness o f and for the pow er o f the king. This was what
royal art galleries m ade visible: addressing their visitors as subjects of the
king, they com prised part o f a sem io-technique o f pow er through which the
sovereign ’s pow er w as to be augm ented by m aking it publicly visible.
H owever, as Carol Duncan and A lan W allach have observed, the royal art
gallery also served as a context for organizing a new set o f relations between
the fields o f the v isib le and the in visib le. The developm ent of display
principles in w hich paintings w ere grouped by national sch o o ls and art
historical periods conferred a new codified visib ility on the history of the
1lowed the
nation and the history o f art. This aspect o f the royal art gallery a
form to be subsequently adapted, with relatively little refashioning. )n
service o f a dem ocratic citizenry. Thus the administration o f the L °u' r
during the French R evolution required no fundam ental change in its *соП
graphic programme for it to be adjusted to this end. Strategic replace
o f im ages o f royalty with allegorical and depersonalized r e p r e s e n t a t i o n
; th£
the state perm itted a recodification o f the works o f art exhibited such tha1^
nation they now made m anifest w as not ‘the nation as the k in g ’s realm
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

ctate - an abstract entity in theory belonging to the p eo p le’

* " да0Л; ;« ,1 1 « с Ь 1980: 454).
(p un can an s are in agreem ent on this point. For E ilean Hooper-
M°st allt 10exam ple, the Louvre rem ained tied to statist principles derived
Greenh*11’ ° r.®r m onarchical organization. Its centring o f the citizen or,
from its eal ror thus ‘could not help but recall those older renditions o f
later, the emp resented tbe w orld, w hich centred h im self, through the
the prince m eaningful ob jects’ (H ooper-G reenhill 1992: 168). Perhaps
organisation ^ there is liu le or n0 evidence to su ggest that, during the
m° re t0J t° e revolution, the program m e en visaged for the Louvre departed
course о ^ w h .ch had already been pr0 p0Sed during the pre-
appreciamy
n lution ary p e rio d .
Ге The articulation o f a clear political demand that the royal co llectio n s, once
d in the Louvre but subsequently m oved to V ersailles, should be
e°turned to the Louvre and be opened to the public w as first made by La Font
de Saint Yenne in 1747 in his R eflexio n s su r q u elq u es ca u ses de I’e ta t p re se n t
Je lapein tu re en F rance. The demand was repeated fairly regularly thereafter,
receiving the support o f the E ncyclopedists in 1765. Partly in response to these
demands, and partly in response to other circum stances (the establishm ent of
public collections in many areas o f provincial France; the exam ples o f the
Dusseldorf and B elvedere G alleries), 1778 saw the establishm ent o f a
commission to advise on opening the granc! gallery o f the Louvre as a public
museum. In his discussion o f the concerns o f this com m ission , Edouard
Poinmier suggests that the plans it developed for the Louvre envisaged it as
a museum which, in its dedication to civ ic virtues, w as to promote attachment
to the state-and nation as entities that were con ceived as partly separate from
and superior to the king. Fie further contends - and the docum ents concur -
that there was very little evidence o f any new conception o f the m useum ’s
purpose and function evident in the proceedings o f the C o m m issio n du
Museum and, subsequently, the C o n serv a to ire - the organizations established,
once the museum had been seized for the people, to superintend its d evelop ­
ment. ndeed, if anything, the contrary was true. T hese revolutionary organ-
^anonS’ Pommier argues, sim ply inherited the earlier conception o f the
wor*cet^out by the com m ission established in 1778, as ‘the sanctuary
while faip111'3*6 t*!rou®*1 which civic virtues were to be instilled in the public
arrange1' t0 аПУ attent*on t0 lhe detailed m useological matters (the
PrograrnniП1 Space’ o s s if ic a t io n o f the paintings) through which this
Was contentт 1 ^ carried out and put into effect. Instead, the revolution
Public’ Slmply t0 grand gallery with paintings and open it to the
The mmier 1989: 27)45
rev°lution* thenCntS made t0 Programme o f the Louvre during the
Sense announc*1' Wer6 U ^ev el°P ment ° f earlier tendencies rather than in any
‘ncfine us to und8 * rdt*'Ca* hreak with the past. Even so, this should not
errate the cum ulative significance o f these changes. Their

37
 HISTORY AND THEORY

effect, to recall Marin's d iscu ssion , was the organization o f a narrative о

history o f the sta te’) in w hich it was not the king but the citizen j
functioned, sim ultaneously, as both archactor and metanarrator. The
s e q u e n c e , as D om inique Poulot puts it, w as a form in w hich a natio°n'
citizen ry was m eant to com m une with itse lf through a celebration o f * Па1
w hich the nation served as both subject and object (see Poulot, 1983- 20) *П
this respect, the transform ation o f the Louvre into a public art m useum *П
the iconographic adjustm ents w hich accom panied this provided the basis’^
a new form . Duncan and W allach call this the ‘universal survey m useum ’ Г 1
ob jective was to make a new conception o f the state v isib le to the inspect; S I
o f the citizen by redeploying expropriated royal treasures in a democratT
public setting and thereby investing them with new m eanings in em bodyin
a dem ocratic public representativeness:

The public art collection also im plies a new set o f social relations. A.
visitor to a princely co llectio n m ight have admired the beauty of
individual works, but his relationship»to the co llectio n was essentially
an extension o f his social relationship to the palace and its lord. The
princely gallery spoke for and about the prince. The visitor was meant
to be im pressed by the p rin ce’s virtue, taste and wealth. The gallery’s
iconographic programme and the splendour o f the collection worked to
validate the prince and his rule. In the m useum , the w ealth of the
collection is still a display o f national w ealth and is still meant to
im press. But now the state, as an abstract entity, replaces the king as
host. This change redefines the visitor. He is no longer the subordinate
o f a prince or lord. N ow he is addressed as a citizen and therefore a
shareholder in the state.
(Duncan and W allach 1980: 456)

The royal art gallery is m erely one o f the precursors o f the m odern public art
m useum . M oreover, w e shall not fu lly understand the latter and the signific­
ance o f the sem iotic recoding to w hich it subjected works o f art unless we
con sid er it in relation to the other m useum types (o f geology, natural history,
anthropology, scien ce and technology, etc.) w hich developed alongside it and
w hich, in doing so, subjected their ow n precursors to equally significant
transform ations, re-arranging their objects in new configurations so as to
allow new con cepts and realities to be figured forth into the sphere ^ |
visibility. V iew ed in this light, the displacem ent, in the art gallery, of 1 e
k ing by the citizen as the archactor and metanarrator o f a se 1f-refсrrin^
narrative form ed part o f a new and broader narrative, one with a w ^
ep istem ic reach in which it is ‘M an’ who functions as the a r c h a c to r ^
metanarrator o f the story o f his (for it w as a gendered narrative) 0
developm ent. 0f
This narrative w as made p ossib le as a con sequ en ce o f a com pleX ь ^
transform ations governing the objects and procedures o f a wide rang

38
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

The m ost crucial developm ents concerned the extension s o f time

k"°wle£f h v discoveries in the fields o f geo lo g y and palaeontology, espe-
pi-oduced y ig30s and 1840s, and the reorientations o f anthropology which
cially in the . n o f a deep historical tim e prom pted in allow in g for the
this Pr0 dUCt'° o f other peoples as ‘prim itive’. 16 W hile important d ifferen ces
historiCT hetw een com peting schools o f evolutionary thought throughout the
remained e шгу) the predom inating tendency w as one in w hich the
„in etee n t ^ 0f geology, biology, anthropology and history were connected
d i f f e r e n t tn ^ { о f o r m a u n i v e r s a i time. Such a tem porality links

t0 one ano^ o f th& eart},’s form ation, o f the developm ent o f life on
to g e th er ^ evolution 0 f human life out o f animal life and its developm ent
earth, о .{.у е , to ‘c iv iliz e d ’ form s, into a sin gle narrative w hich posits
fr0™ а Г[^ап (white, m ale, and m iddle class, as Catherine Hall (1 9 9 2 ) would
i t ) as t h e outcome and, in som e cases, telos o f these processes.
PUThese changes are often accounted for, by those w ho draw on Foucault's
work as parts o f a more general shift from the cla ssica l to the modern
episteme and as a reaction to its splintering effects. For Stephen Bann (1984)
and E ilean Hooper-Greenhill (1989) the m useum functions as a site in which
the figure o f ‘Man’ is reassem bled from his fragm ents. If the dispersal o f that
licure across what now em erges as a series o f separated histories m eans that
Man’s unity can no longer be regarded as pre-given, the m useum allow ed that
unity to be reconstituted in the construction o f ‘M an’ as a project to be
completed through time. Like all the k in g ’s horses and all the k in g ’s men,
the m u seum is engaged in a constant historical band-aid exercise in seeking
to put back together the badly shattered human subject.
While true so far as it goes, this account is too abstract to engage
adequately with the representational regim e o f the public m useum or the
manner o f its functioning. It is also necessary to consider the consequences
ot a related transformation whereby collection s were rearranged in accord­
ance with the principle o f re p rese n ta tiven e ss rather than that o f rarity. At the
same time as being a representational shift, however, this change is tied up
wit and enables a functional transformation as collectio n s, no longer thought
3S means *or stim ulating the curiosity o f the few, are reconceptualized as
means for instructing the many.

ассог4адс^an^eS' t0^et^er Wlth those which reorganized museum displays in

develop 7 W't'1 re4 uirem ents o f an evolutionary h istoricism , were
extended *mP'em ented 111 a gradual and piecem eal fashion over an
mneteenth^cT10^ Were not com pleted until the final quarter o f the
m°ve awayCfentUIp ^ ey are a*so ones which saw the centre o f initiative
societies in whLh ГЭПСе anc^ towards Britain and, later, the U nited States as
'^e Pfinciples оП 'ь *16 deploym ent ot cultural resources in accordance with
ln France this p r ' ®overnm ent proceeded more rapidly and more evenly.
restorations throu ChSS WaS *nterruPte(d by a su ccession o f royal and im perial
8 which art and culture were p eriodically re-enlisted in the

39
 HISTORY AND THEORY

service o f pow er by being called on to sy m b o lize it. By contr

programme the South K ensington M useum developed in the 1850s USt’
was a programme that proved influential throughout the English-*' ЙПс*it
world - detached art and culture from the function o f bedazzlin
population and harnessed them, instead, to that o f m anaging the popu^
by providing it with the resources and contexts in which it m ight Ьесощ ‘at'°n
educating and self-regulating. SeH-
T hese transform ations are perhaps m ost readily discernible in the f0’
tion o f the natural history m useum . K rzysztof Pom ian’s discussions o f j
principles o f curiosity and o f their gradual erosion, in the eighteenth cent ^
by the new orientations em bodied in natural history collection s, provide ^
con ven ient point o f departure. In Pom ian’s view , the principles of curiosi^
as exem plified in the c a b in e ts d e c u rie u x o f sixteenth- and seventeenth'
century collecto rs, com prised a d istinctive epistem ic universe, an inter
regnum betw een the restrictions that had been placed on inquiry by religj0n
and those that were to be placed on it by the requirem ents o f scientific
rationality. A s Pom ian puts it, the K u n stk a m m e r and W underkam m er of the
R enaissance constructed:

a universe peopled with strange beings and objects, where anything

could happen, and where, consequently, every question could legitim­
ately be posed. In other w ords, it was a universe to which corresponded
a type o f cu riosity no longer controlled by th eology and not yet
controlled by scien ce, both these dom ains tending to reject certain
questions as either blasphem ous or im pertinent, thus subjecting curi­
osity to a d iscipline and im posing certain lim its on it. G iven free reign
during its b rief interregnum , curiosity spontaneously fixed on all that
w as m ost rare and m ost in a ccessib le, m ost astonishing and most
enigm atic.
(Pom ian 1990: 77-8)

In his d iscu ssion o f the co llectio n o f Pierre Borel, Pomian notes how the
stress that was placed on the singular, the unique and the exceptional reflected
a pre-scientific rationality in its com m itm ent to a view o f nature’s infinite
variability and d iversity.17 The reason for this, he argues, is clear: ‘if nature
is said to be governed alw ays and everyw here by the same law s, then logically
it should be reflected in the com m on, the repetitive and the reproducible, but
if, on the other hand, no law s can be seen at work in nature, rare things alone
are seen to be capable o f representing nature properly’ (Pom ian 1990. •
For Pom ian, the regim e o f representation to w hich the governing Pr‘n ^
o f curiosity gave rise was, at the same tim e, the m anifestation o f a spe
form o f epistem ic desire - the desire for a know ledge o f totality acqn|re
m eans that were, ultim ately, secretive and cu ltic. For the cu rieu x, the 51П^ еу
and exceptional objects assem bled in the cabinet are valued b e c a u s e
stand in a special relationship to the totality and, hence, offer a means
 T H E F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

Г Tp vvledee of, and privileged relation to, that totality. But this
t quirin® 3 k'i?cioe is. like the objects through w hich it is a ccessib le, a rare
form of kn0VV| еые to those special few w ho actively seek it. And the cabinet
one only aval la ^ d esjgn and in its social relations, reflects its role as a
o f cUr i o s i» eS ' ^ nk n o w l e d g e th a t is> at o n ce, rare and ex clu siv e, intelligible
storehouse о a ^ ^ inclination and cultural training to be able to
only to th0SerJ ati0nship in which each object stands to the w hole,
decipher the al|enge [he principles o f curiosity, Pomian argues, came
Th£ in'Uh in sin g focu s o f natural history d isplays w hich, through the
from the. Ccentury, cam e increasingly to accord priority o f attention to the
eighteen'th^ com m 0nplace and the close-at-h and at the exp en se o f the
normal. ^ the e x o tic . This shift o f em phasis was, as Pom ian puts it,
eXCefaneously epistem ic and utilitarian. It was the product o f new principles
^ c ie n t if ic rationality in which a search for laws as revealed by recurrences
0 S^'e |evej 0 f the average or com m onp lace cam e to prevail over the
fa sc in a tio n with nature’s singular w onders. Yet it also entailed a new concern
with the general com m unicability o f this know ledge in order, through its
effective d is s e m in a tio n , to allow it to be put to useful effect in the productive
exploitation o f nature. What changed, then, was not m erely the classificatory
principles g o v e rn in g the arrangement o f exhibits. There was also a changed
orientation to the visitor - one w hich was increasingly pedagogic, aim ing to
render the principles o f in telligib ility governing the co llec tio n s readily
intelligible to all and sundry, as contrasted with the secretive and cultic
knowledge o ffered by the cabinet o f curiosity.
The issues at stake here are posed m ost cleatly by the debates regarding
whether or-not collections might be separated into tw o parts: one for research
purposes and the other for public display. Richard Owen had proved
recalcitrantly opposed to this during his period as Director o f the Natural
History collections at the British M useum as w ell as, later, founding-D irector
ot the Museum o f Natural History when it m oved to its own prem ises. Owen
insisted, throughout, on the need for a national collection to be as w holly and
exhaustively representative o f nature’s diversity as space w ould allow (see
th^g0 8 None the less, it was Edward Gray, the Keeper o f Z o o lo g y at
Museum and O w en’s subordinate, who was the first to suggest, in
exhibit)0 Ut '* WOU^ desirable to form a stu d y -se rie s as distinct from the
Seneral^uffp^5 ^ гаУ argued that what ‘the largest class o f visitors, the
arranged • 'C Want’ *s a collection o f the m ore interesting objects so
moderate s^- ^ 3^ 0rc* greatest p ossib le am ount o f inform ation in a
121 UnC* t0 k>e ° k ta'neck as it were, at a g la n ce’ (cited in W inson
Hatural h isto r°U|S ^ ass*z ’ w^ ° had argued, in 1862, that ‘co llectio n s o f
extensive’ ( д е . ^ *6SS use^ui f ° r study in proportion as they are more
ltlis Principle o fS'Z was to Pfove the first influential advocate o f
*he two functi0ns SCJ)arate displays. A lthough at first seeking to reconcile
s о research and popular pedagogy, in 1878 he divided the

41
 HISTORY AND THEORY

collection o f Harvard’s M useum o f Com parative Z oology along th

Gray had su ggested . Sir W illiam Henry Flow er, O w en ’s su cc e6
L ondon’s M useum o f Natural H istory, w as to do the same in 1884 ^ ° Г at
In the principles Flow er enunciated for public natural history disni
singularity o f the object - its unique properties - is no longer o f any j ^
C iting G. Brown G o o d e’s fam ous definition o f a w ell-arranged nm'nterest.
‘a collection o f instructive labels illustrated by w ell-selected snP •
Г71_______________ ... j ____ :u „ ,1____________ ,i______1.__t_ ■ ^ e c im ens>
Flow er goes on to describe the process through w hich, ideally, the a
m ent o f that part o f a m useum intended for public instruction sho i
arrived at: u d be

First, as I said before, you m ust have your curator. He must careful]
con sid er the object o f the m useum , the cla ss and capacities of the
persons for w hose instruction it is founded, and the space available t0
carry out this object. He w ill then divide the subject to be illustrated'
into groups, and consider their relative proportions, according to which
he w ill plan out the space. Large labels w ill next be prepared for the
principal headings, as the chapters o f a book, and sm aller ones for the
various subd ivisions. Certain propositions to be illustrated, either in the
structure, classification , geographical distribution, g eo lo g ica l position,
habits, or evolution o f the subjects dealt w ith, w ill be laid down and
reduced to definite and con cise language. L astly w ill com e the illus­
trative sp ecim ens, each o f w hich as procured and prepared w ill fall into
its appropriate place.
(Flow er 1898: 18)

The m ain point to note here is less that the object com es last but that, in
doing so, its function and place is drastically altered to the extent that its
status is now that o f an illustration o f certain general law s or tendencies. The
im plications o f this new status are clearly identified as Flow er proceeds to
argue both the need for, and the p ossib ility of, sparsity in the display of
sp ecim ens so that the v isito r s’ attention should not be distracted by the
proliferation o f objects on display. This new representational principle of
sparsity, however, is possib le only on the condition that the object displayed
is view ed as representative o f other objects fallin g w ithin the same class. This
contrasts m arkedly with the principles o f curiosity w hich, since objects are
valued for their uniqueness, and sin ce, therefore, no object can stand in
another, can assign no lim its to the potentially en d less proliferation of object
w hich they m ight contain.
But the principle o f sparsity is, at the sam e tim e, a principle o f legibibb
.„ . . . . ... . is, I*1
and o f public legibility. If the m useum object is an illustration, js
F lo w er’s schem e, no room for am biguity regarding its meaning- ,(S
already vouchsafed for it by the evolutionary narratives w hich assign
place - narratives w hich, ideally, govern the perform ative as well
representational aspects o f the m useum ’s environm ent. Thus, in outlining j

42

i
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

natural history m useum , Flow er visu alizes a representa-

that is, at the sam e tim e, a perform ative one or, better, a
Potial arran^enie"t is realized in and through its perform ance. His plan, an
‘'epresentati°n e that J a m e s B o g a r d u s h a d e a r l i e r p r o p o s e d fo r a w o r l d ’s fa ir
adaptation0t ^967-" 19.9), c o n s i s t e d o f a s e r ie s o f g a l l e r i e s a r r a n g e d in the
ee Giedion • w i t h i n th e o th e r , a n d c o m m u n i c a t i n g at f r e q u e n t
form of circles,

■ cle w o u ld represent an ep och in the w orld ’s history, com -

Each circ centre an<j finishing at the outerm ost, which w ould be
теПСШ which we are now living. The history o f each natural group
thUl ld b e tr a c e d in radiating lines, and so by passing from the centre to
woUcircumference, its condition o f developm ent in each period o f the
'w orld’s history could be studied.
won (Flow er 1898: 49)

The visitor at such a m useum is not placed statically before an order o f things
whose rationality w ill be revealed to the visitor’s im m obile contem plation.
Rather, lo co m o tio n - and sequential locom otion - is required as the visitor
is faced w ith an itinerary in the form o f an order o f things which reveals itself
only to th ose w ho, step by step, retrace its evolutionary developm ent.
How far similar principles o f representation characterized the full range o f
specialist museums that developed in the nineteenth century is a m oot point.
Its influence on anthropological collectio n s is clear. Pitt R ivers (or, as he was
then, Colonel Fox) clearly articulated the relationship betw een the principles
of representativeness, sparsity and public instruction governing the typo­
logical method he used- in displaying his co llec tio n s. In ou tlinin g the
principles o f classification governing the first public display o f his co llectio n s
at Bethnal Green in 1874, he thus stated: *

The collection does not contain any considerable number o f unique

specimens, and has been collected during upwards o f twenty years, not
tor the purpose o f surprising any on e, either by the beauty or value o f
e objects exhibited, but solely with a view to instruction. For this
purpose ordinary and typical sp ecim ens, rather than rare objects, have
pract'SeJ^Cted anc* arranged in seq u en ce, so as to trace, as far as
primitiv ^ su ccess'on ° f ideas by which the minds o f men in a
c°mpleVe C0'!diti0n ° P cu ^ture have progressed from the sim ple to the
x, an from the hom ogeneous to the heterogeneous.
‘ (L ane-Fox 1875: 2 9 3 -4 )

's 'he art m useu^ I^ ° St USUa*^ c ited as an exception to this general tendency
st'd governed ь™ h ° Г ^teP.^en Greenblatt (1991), the modern art m useum is
tfle visitor in h e f o' ? ,'3r'n c'P'e w °n d er to the degree that it seek s to stop
w° rk of art jn со°пГ ls tracks by con veyin g a sense o f the uniqueness o f the
rast with the principle o f resonance which characterizes

43
 HISTORY AND THEORY

other m odern co llec tio n s where the v ie w e r’s attention is diverted aw

the object itself and towards the im plied system o f relationships of
form s a part, the m odern art m useum , G reenblatt contends, is dedi
d isplaying the singularity o f the m asterpiece. This requires such an i ed to
o f regard from the visitor that everything else is blocked out from he
v isio n . Barbara K irshenblatt-G im blett’s p osition is similar. W hile а о ° Г^
that, in the sc ien ce s, nineteenth-century m useum classification s had
‘the grounds o f singularity from the object to a category w ithin a na •'
taxon om y’ (K irshenblatt-G im blett 1991: 3 9 2 ), the exhibition o f works'0^
continued to be predicated on the singularity o f each object and its 3rt
to d azzle. " P0Wer
There is, then, a fairly w idespread school o f thought according to wh'
the art museum stands to one side o f the representational regime that ha
developed in association with the form ation o f other types o f public museums
However, this view has been com p ellin gly challenged by Philip Fisher who
sees the m odern art m useum as being just as much dominated by what he
calls the ‘techn ology o f the se rie s’ as other m useum types and for much the
sam e sorts o f reasons. A s art cam e to be en visaged as a cultural resource
w hich m ight be u tilized in governm ental programmes aimed at enriching the
w hole population, then so the principles o f its display were fundamentally
m odified. W here on ce sensory values had governed displays o f art with
p aintings, mirrors, tapestries, etc., being placed in relation to one another in
such a way as to produce a p lea sin g harmony, the public art museum
developed new form s o f exhibition that ‘in volved an instruction in history
and cultures, periods and sch ools, that in both order and combination was
fundam entally p ed a g o g ic’ (Fisher 1991: 7). The resulting technology of the
series, Fisher argues, w as inherently inim ical to the logic o f the masterpiece.
W hereas the m asterpiece is ‘the quintessential com plete and finished object
(ibid.: 174), a self-su bsistent singularity existin g outside the orders of time,
the script o f the art m useum n ecessarily deprives the work o f art of any such
status in subordinating it to the effects o f the techn ology o f the series - that
is, o f works o f art placed one after the other in a sequential toil that is
h istoricized. This techn ology form s m erely a part o f the m odern ‘m achinery
o f a history o f art which sequences each object and provides it with sources
(ancestors) and con sequ en ces (descendants) beyond itse lf’, hanging Pa'nt'n®j
in a row so that ‘the individual work is im plied to be follow ing this a
leading to that’ (ibid.: 97). . ^
The pedagogy com prised by this techn ology is not just a r e p r e s e n t a t i °
one that works via its influence on the v isito r ’s con sciousness. It 1 ^
techn ology which also saturates the routines o f the visitor as the IesS°'J J0
art’s progress takes the form o f an itinerary that the visitor is 0 jroni
perform. The m useum converts room s into paths, into spaces leading
and to som ew here. Fisher outlines what he m eans by this in contending
it is the m useum that teaches us to ‘f o llo w ’ art:
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE M U S E U M

lk through a m useum , w alk past the art. recapitulates in our

f hat we walk ^ ^ history itself, its restlessness, its forward m otion,
aCt the motion о ^ being a fa ct that show s the p u b lic’s ignorance
its P°w ert°- "bout, the rapid stroll through a m useum is an act in deep
0f whai art is; ^ arti that js , art history and the m useum itself
harmony wit -ц а1 object< w hich the museum itself has profoundly
(not with the in
hidden in history и (Fisher 1991: 9)

ative consequences o f this technology o f the series are most

The Pe rnibie where it is absent. The M useum o f Modern Art at the
clears dlS£ erntre Js perhaps the best-docum ented exam ple. Here there is no
pom pm on^ ^ ^ performed. Instead, the museum substitutes a directed form
^ m ^ c tio n le s s n e s s for the narrativized route o f the historical co llectio n in
° f aim less wandering it ob liges its visitors to undertake. For more traditional
visitors used to the performative requirem ents o f the technology o f the series,
the' new dem ands p osed by such a d e-historicized context for art's display
have been experienced as deeply disorientating (see H einich 1988).
To summarize, then, w hile the form ation o f the public museum form s part
and parcel o f the fashioning o f a n ew discursive space in w hich ‘Man’
functions as the archactor and metanarrator o f the story o f his own develop­
ment, we shall not ad eq uately understand the functioning and organization of
this space if w e view it solely as fabricating a com pensatory totality in the face
of the ruins o f the human subject. Nor shall w e do so if w e focus so lely on its
representational aspects. This is the central w eakness o f post-structuralist
criticisms o f the museum in their focus on the m useum ’s claim s to representa­
tional adequacy and then, inevitably, finding those claim s wanting.
For Eugenio Donato, for exam ple, the aspiration o f the nineteenth-century
museum ‘to give by the ordered display o f selected artefacts a total representa-
tion ot human reality and history’ depended on*the fiction that ‘a repeated
metonymic displacement o f fragment for totality, object to label, series o f
jects to series o f labels, can still produce a representation w hich is
therT -°W ade<?uate t0 a oonlinguistic u n iverse’ (D onato 1979: 2 2 1 -3 ). Once
a т ^аа85и т Р1'ОП8 are 4 uestioned, D onato argues, the museum co lla p ses into
besiden'|nkleSS *5г'с "а",эгас- This criticism , w hilst perfectly correct, is also
° n the acT ^ °'nt 'П l^at 1^е sPe c ific effica cy o f the m useum does not depend
indeed its^effi^ ^ ° t/lerw 'se *ts relationship to a referential d in g -a n -sich .
structure о Oh CaC‘>/’ 'tS sPe c ific m odus o p era n d i, does not derive from the
is to view theC re^resentatt° ns it happens to contain. To suppose that it does
significanc 6 museurn itself, as an apparatus, as o f an entirely incidental
h is, o f c o ; ; : ^ ^ Wlth the rePresentations it contains.
'nc°mplete ) outc museurn s construction o f ‘M an’ as the (still
biological anthro5'11? 3 SCt *ntertw ined evolutionary series (g eo lo g ica l,
po ogical, archaeological) was articulated to existin g social

45
 HI STO RY AND THEO RY

hierarchies in the m ost obvious and palpable o f w ays. Christina Crosu 1

noted the respects in w hich the v iew o f history as the ‘truth 0f
n ecessarily entails the production o f a num ber o f p osition s outsid
history - the position o f w om en and ‘p rim itiv es’, for exam ple - in r 'i tllat
to w hich its sp ecificity can be defined. ‘In these w ays,’ she argues “ * at'°n
that generic, universal category typifyin g everything human, is
constituted through violen tly hierarchical d ifferen ces. “ W om en” щц-^ Ct
radically other to history and to men; “ p rim itiv e” men must be b
human, potentially but not actually h istorical’ (Crosby 1991: 2). Mor ^
the conflict betw een the theoretical universalism o f the m useum ’s discu°Ver'
space and its actual articulation to existin g social hierarchies has been^'^
continues to be, responsible for fuellin g a p oliticization o f the museum аТ^
has been called on to reverse these exclusionary and hierarchical effects '
Yet an important characteristic o f the public m useum as compared with '
various forebears con sists in the fact that it d eploys its machinery 0f
representation w ithin an apparatus w hose orientation is primarily govern
m ental. A s such, it is concerned not only to im press the visitor with a message
o f pow er but also to induct her or him into new form s o f programming the
s e lf aim ed at producing new types o f conduct and self-shaping. From this
perspective, the sign ifican ce o f the new discu rsive space o f Man’s progress­
ive developm ent also con sisted in its role in providing a discursive accom­
panim ent to, and context for, the new ddnds o f perform ance the museum was
associated with, either directly or indirectly. Let m e su ggest tw o possibilities.
In the first, the m useum m ight be seen as providing a reinforcement
m echanism in relation to the new institutions o f social training governed by
what Foucault calls evolutive tim e. The marking out o f tim e into a series of
stages com prising a linear path o f evolution; the organization o f these stages
into an itinerary that the v isito r’s route retraces; the projection of the future
as a course o f lim itless developm ent: in all these w ays the museum echoes
and resonates with those new institutions o f d iscipline and training through
w hich, via the construction o f a series o f stages that were to be passed through
by m eans o f the su ccessfu l acquisition o f the appropriate skills, individuals
were encouraged to relate to them selves as beings in incessant need 0
progressive developm ent. The com m ents o f Joseph Lancaster in sum m arizing
the logic o f the m onitorial sch oo ls w ill help con vey the point I’m after here-
of
Som e classes in a school w ill o ccasion ally be ex tin c t in c o n s e q u e n c e
the im provem ent o f the scholars. If all the children who are m
alphabet class, im prove so as to be rem oved to the second, the alpha
class m ust be extinct, unless fresh scholars are admitted.
(Lancaster 1838- I
ect °f
The nineteenth-century m useum w as a space in w hich the pr°sP 0f
extinction was posed in m any ways: through the depiction o f the his ^
life on earth in natural history displays and, o f course, in the futures

46
 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE MU S E U M

h n o g r a p h i c displays projected for colonized peoples. The part

js t e n c e thaU U rations played in authorizing the practices o f colonialism
.6* „и rPDfCSGI . .. _ _ _____------------------
t h a t such \ documented. However, the evolutionary space o f the museum
[nlS b e e n amp У s e t 0 f articulations. It provided a context in which the

h a d a n o t h e r - nl^ arse and recapitulate the ordering o f social life prom oted by
visitormlg . ^ o f discipline and regulation w hich provided a new grid for
those instlt“P°'relationship worked the other way, too, with the hierarchical
daily life- ^jated with the museum often providing a m odel for other social
rankings asso thg series o f stages lhat education should follow ,
jnstitutions^^^^r reproduced the hierarchical logic governing the arrangement
Herbert pe^ ,nternational exhibitions. A rational programme o f education,
0f classes ^ should COm m ence with those activities which directly and
s Pencer P minister tQ seif-preservation’ and proceed, thence, to those activ-
in(lir^hich ’have for their end the rearing and d iscipline o f offsp rin g ’. The
ltie^er stages o f education would com prise instruction in ’those activities
hich are involved in the m aintenance o f proper social and political relations’
to be crow ned finally, by instruction in ‘those m iscellan eou s activities which
lili up the leisure part o f life, devoted to the gratification o f the tastes and
feelings’ (Spencer, cited in Humes 1983: 31).
Viewed in this light, the museum m ight be regarded as a m achinery for
producing ‘progressive subjects’. Its routines served to induct the visitor into
an improving relationship to the self. This yield ed - ideally - a citizenry
which, in drilling itself, would com e to be auto-tuned to the requirem ents o f
the new forms o f social training w hose operations provided the m useum with
a salient point o f external reference and connection. In a second argument,
however, the performative context o f the m useum m ight be seen as having a
more directly ‘progressive e ffe c t’ in its own right. For the space o f the
museum was also an em ulative one; it was en visaged as a place in which the
working cla sses would acquire m ore civ iliz ed habits by im itating their
etters. It was, moreover, seen as crucial to the f u t ile progress o f civilization
rest t^'S S*10U'C* occur: the dissem ination o f m idd le-class form s o f prudential
throu'h' 'nt° wor^ ’n8 c la sses via the male head o f household was seen,
forfefied Ut m° St cen tury, as a n ecessity if civilization w as not to be
lation еу 1е ^ Па1иГе ^ progress collap se beneath the w eight o f overpopu-
w'th botheWe U1 t'1*S m useum might be seen as issuing its visitors
by treating an °P P °rtunity to civ iliz e them selves and in so doing,
through thP 6 <"4*1'*3tts as props for a social perform ance aimed at ascending

In these reT e '° Ы р * ^ Pr° greSS ° П path’

through w h ic h th ^ ' museum Provided its visitors with a set o f resources
1)1 history by fashey actively insert them selves within a particular vision
rcsPects, however01}!11^ 1^е т 5 е *Уе5 t0 contribute to its developm ent. In other
s° ciety perfectj (’г _1 e m useum was heir to earlier utopian con ception s o f a
nsparent to itself and, as a con sequ en ce, self-regulating.

47
 HJSTORY AND THEORY

T R A N SP A R E N C Y AND SOCIAL REGULATION

A s w ell as being provided with m useum s, libraries and art ga]]e ■

inhabitants o f James Silk B uckingham ’s m odel town, which he nr Пе5, %
call V ictoria, were to enjoy the benefits o f what Anthony Vidler pref o Pose<j
its ‘colonnades o f m orality’ (V idler 1978: 63). Com prising, essenrSt° :
series o f raised prom enades w hich traversed all the main thoroughfg'8^ ’ a
public spaces o f the tow n, these colonn ades were intended to ^ 3,1(1
v isib ility on all aspects o f urban life and to transform the fla n e u r in to а° П^ Г 3
p olicem an - or, more accurately, a citizen w ho was interchangeably theCUl?en
and the subject o f p olicing in circulating betw een being subjected60^ 1
controlling gaze o f others to, in turn, exercisin g such a gaze. For the int ° ^
effec t o f these prom enades, com bined with that o f the central tower h e<*
gallery was to provide for a panoptic inspection o f the w hole urban °SS
was to banish any and all spaces o f darkness and secrecy in which vice m'.к
flourish (see Figure 1.1). A s Buckingham sum m arized his intent:

From the entire absence o f all w ynds, courts and blind alleys, or culs-de-
sac, there w ould be no secret and obscure haunts for the retirement of
the filthy and the immoral from the public ey e, and for the indulgence
o f that m orose defiance o f public d ecency w hich such secret haunts
generate in their inhabitants.
. (Buckingham 1849: 193)

Sim ilar sch em es abounded during this period. Indeed, as Vidler shows,
B u ck in gham ’s plan drew on Robert O w en ’s earlier plan for a harmonious
com m unity - the Parallelogram - for much o f its detail. Similarly, the role
it en visaged for the colonn ades echoed that w hich, in the design for Fourier's
Phalanstery, had been assigned to a network o f galleries in providing for
the supervision o f com m unal sp aces. In her d iscu ssion o f nineteenth-centurv
utopian and religiou s com m un ities, D o lo res Hayden has also shown how
important the architectural m anipulation o f relations o f space and vision
was to the w ays in w hich such com m un ities aspired to be morally self-
regulating in subjecting each individual to the con trolling gaze of their
fe llo w s (H ayden 1976).
This utopian fascination with architecture as a moral science was по1^
new. In his study o f C laude-N icolas Ledoux - for whom architecture provi
an opportunity ‘to join the interests o f art with those o f go v ern m en t^
in V idler 1990: 7 5 ) - V idler show s the degree to which the a r c h i t e c ^
production o f relations o f transparency w as central to the r e f o r m i n g P
o f the Enlightenm ent. In his d esign s for salt-w orks, m asonic l o d g e s - 0[
izati°n
and for H ouses o f Education and H ou ses o f G am es, the orSan!Z.'r0]e iM
relations o f either hierarchical or mutual visib ility played a c r u c ia £
L ed ou x’s conception o f the w ays in w hich architecture m ight help
and fashion human conduct. ndef'^
Yet the w ish to make a so ciety transparent to itse lf as a means o f re
Figure 1.1 Perspective view of Victoria
Source: Buckingham (1849).
 HISTORY AND THEORY

it self-regulating is not lim ited, in either its origins or its provenanc

architectural sphere. Indeed, the aspiration w as perhaps first m ost th r''° t|)e
w orked through, both philosoph ically and practically, in the various • ° Ugtl|y
that were m ade, in the course o f the French R evolution, to refa J ^ ^ P h
practices o f the festival so that they m ight serve as an instrument o f c ' '°П
con scio u sn ess for a citizen dem ocracy. In the political imaginar CSe^'
R evolution, the festival, as M ona O zouf puts it, was regarded as d
for ‘the m ingling o f citizen s delighting in the spectacle o f one anoth ’ ®
the perfect accord o f their hearts’ (O zou f 1988: 54). The festival as о ^
elaborates the argum ent, w as thought o f as an occasion in w h ic h ^
individual was ‘rebaptised as a citizen ’(ibid.: 9). It was a form through wh'^
‘the new social bond was to be made m anifest, eternal, and untouchab
(ibid.: 9) in allow in g the m em bers o f so ciety to be rendered visually /
present to and with one another.
It w as ch iefly for this reason that the amphitheatre was the preferred
architectural setting for the festival in allow in g spectators and participants to
see one another in, theoretically, relations o f perfect reciprocity. ‘The ideal
place in w hich to install the R evolutionary festiv a l’, as O zouf puts it, ‘was
therefore one that provided an uninterrupted view , in w hich every movement
w as im m ediately visib le, in w hich everyone could encom pass at a glance the
intentions o f its organisers’ (O zou f 1988: 129). Yet if ‘unimpeded vision and
the festiv e sp irit’ seem ed to go hand-in-hand, it was also true that the
‘sp on tan eity’ o f the festival becam e in creasin gly organized and, indeed,
coercive to the extent that the official ideal o f the festival form could only be

F i g u r e 1 .2 Festival o f Labour, the Familistere, 1872

Source: Ha yden (1981).
 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE M U S E U M

• ed by the rig ° rous exclu sl0n of ali Ihose elem en ts o f m isrule riotous
re:1"Zlb,y and carnivalesque inversion associated with traditional popular
vals An occasion for the exercise o f social virtues, the revolutionary
feS 'val constituted an overdeterm ined context in which ‘т е г е contact
w een people was an education in c iv ic s ’ and in this, its civ ic function the
rival was regarded as ’very different from the riotous assem bly or even
L crowd’ (ibid.: 200). The ideal o f scop ic reciprocity, in other words was
' n,uch an instrum ent o f social d iscip lin e as it was a m eans o f celebrating
the citizenry’s co-presence to and with itself.
' The architectural legacy o f such con ception s is evident in the design o f the
courtyard for the Fam ilistere, or Social Palace, built in G uise from 1859 and
modelled on Fourier s com munitarian principles (see Figure 1.2) Here in
Ihe Festival o f Labour, the com m unity is gathered together in a co llectiv e
celebratory m ode which, at the sam e tim e that it is self-affirm ing is also se lf
policing. The m ost striking aspects o f this scene are its resem blances to the
new forms o f exh.b.t.onary architecture developed in the nineteenth centurv
In arcades (see Figure 1.3), department stores (see Figure 1.4) and the new

Figure 1.3 C le v e la n d A rc a d e , C le v e la n d , 1 8 8 8 - 9 0
Source: P e v s n e r (1 9 7 6 ).

51
 HISTORY AND THEORY

F ig u r e 1.4 T h e B o n M a rch e
Source: Miller (1981).

m useum s that were custom built for their new public function (see Figure;
1.5 and 1.6), the sam e architectural principle recurs again and again
R elations o f space and vision are organized not m erely to allow a clea
inspection o f the objects exhibited but also to allow for the visitors to be ;
objects o f each other’s inspection - scen es in which, if not a citizenry, then
certainly a public displayed itse lf to itse lf in an affirm ative celebration of its
ow n orderliness in architectural contexts w hich sim ultaneously guarantee
and produced that orderliness. 19
That this w as a w holly con sciou s techn ology o f regulation is clear fro11
the way in w hich these new exhibitionary architectures were developed о
from, and by m eans of, a critique o f earlier architectural forms. Signi ^
enough, however, it was not the m useum 's m ost im m ediate precursors
! reset' 1
were m ost typ ically looked to in this regard. W here collection s were
to *
for royal inspection or were assem bled in cabinets o f c u r i o s i t i e s ° pet
only the p rivileged were adm itted, and then usually on the ^aS1^j[£.ctiir3'
sonalized tours for a handful o f visitors at a tim e, the need for an arc ^
f Sir •
regulation o f the visitor did not arise. The warren-like l a y o u t о jtof

S o an e’s m useum thus provided no m echanism for inhibiting the ^

conduct (see Figure 1.7). W hen, in 1841, a H ouse o f C o m m o n ^ ()1
C om m ittee on N ational M onum ents and W orks o f Art c o n s i

52
 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE M U S E U M

,-vN

F i g u r e 1 . 5 Bethnal Green Museum, 1876

Source: Physik (1982).

architectural layout o f public b uildings, buildings o f this kind and - where

they existed - the labour-intensive practices o f visitor supervision which
accompanied them were assessed as in efficient so far as their regulatory
capacities were concerned. The Tower o f London em erged as antiquated in
hs continued use o f wardens as the primary m eans o f guiding visitors w hile
keeping a watchful eye on them. For W illiam Buss, an artist, the guided tours
of the armouries diminished their potential value:

at that time it appeared to me to be very d efective; the people were

a llie d through in gangs o f from 2 0 to 30, and there was no time
ofaOwed for the investigation o f any thing whatever; in fact, they were
migh^a t0 attenc* t0 warder, and if the people had catalogues they
them US WC" ^ave 'hem >n their pockets; when they wanted to read
behind1 C° ^ unct'on with the object they saw, o f course they lagged
Catalogues- t*1£n t*1C Warc^er w ould say, ‘You m ust not do that; the
a great d e a p 6 *° ^ ГСа^ at h ° me: you must fo llo w m e, or you w ill lose
°dd mode f dn^- *.was Peculiarly struck by that, for I thought it a very
ex ibiting national property.
1,1e Prim- (Report, 1841, m inute 2805)
jection to this form o f visitor regulation, as it em erges in the

53
 . HI S T O R Y A N D T H E O R Y

Figure 1.6 The Industrial Gallery, Birmingham

Source: S. Tait, Palaces o f Discovery, L ondon, Quiller Press, 1989.

Figure 1.7 Section drawing of Sir John Soane’s M u s e u m , 1827

Source : S. Tait, Palaces o f Discovery, London, Quiller Press, 1989.

54
 T HE F O R M A T I O N O F THE M U S E U M

jts inability to regulate public spaces into w hich indi-

rt consi*ts ,n^ ]arge numbers but on a on e-by-one basis and in which
^ ’^ I s ai"e adrrntte ^ ^ individual must be allow ed to contem plate the
'^Tin the aft mUSorder to be receptive to its beauty and uplifting influence.
ork displayed min herding the visitor round to a fixed tim e-schedule in an
The 2U'ded ЮиГ’ a s s o c i a t i o n with strangers, and in requiring attention to the
Ohligatory cl° Sewarden. was regarded as inconsistent with this ob jective. The
?etPatter° ftheWfor more stream lined w ays o f m anaging the visitor via
preference Wa£Ss (one-way system s w hich do not allow visitors to retrace their
organizedrOUteeSrsonaHze d form s o f surveillance (tw o guards per room , as at
steps) and imp ^ ^ H ow ever, perhaps the m ost distinctive aspect o f the
the Nationa . tergst ev jn ced in m aking use o f the visitors them selves as
Report w a s u r c e _ F o r S ; r Henry E llis, the c h ie f librarian o f the British
a regulat0O^^^ thus clear that a sm an immber o f persons are distributed
Museum,^ whoie house there is a great chance that you may som e day or
throng^ robbed. our servants cannot watch them so w ell when a few persons
0t distributed over a large space; w hen there are many, one visitor, to a
certain extent, may be said to watch another' (Report, 1841, M inute 2944).
^The most interesting com parisons, from this point o f view, were those drawn
between the new public exhibitionary institutions o f the time and cathedrals.
Just as conservatives objected that opening m useum s to the public w ould result
in the destruction and desecration o f art by the m ob, so it was argued that
cathedrals, in allowing unrestricted entry during service time, ran the risk o f
undermining their own spirituality. ‘Even now, with the restricted right o f
entrance,’ the Reverend Smith o f St P au l’s thus argued in his written subm is­
sion, ‘we see beggars, men with burthens, w om en knitting, parties eating
luncheon, dogs, children playing, loud laughing and talking, and every kind
of scene incompatible with the solem nity o f w orship’ (Report, 1841, Minute
-3). Yet, at the same time, if they were a m eans o f stating the problem,
■uthedrals also promised a solution. In the evidence that was submitted, it was
suggested that, where unrestricted entry was granted to large numbers, the
regultant CaPac'ty ^or self-w atching m ight provide for a more effectiv e
When о Т COnduct l^an supervision o f groups o f visitors by wardens,
'’he number65 3 conternP°rary expert on cathedrals, was asked whether
Wr°ng-doerr ° ^ erS° nS adrn‘tted f ° rm a number o f w itnesses who observe the
f°rm a crow dnd d e'cr him ?’, he agreed that ‘the number is not so great as to
Was Precisel t0 , *de eaC^ ot*le r ' (Report, 1841, Minute 1582). This, o f course,
Prevent. The^eT- ^ ^ Uc*c’n®^am s ‘colonnades o f m orality’ were designed to
h°coming a crowTh^ V3nt3^e P °'nt they offer stops an assem bly o f people
,(>r Self-monito ' o'* ^rea^s d UP and individualizes it through the capacity
Pfevents it frorn 'l Provides. The transparency o f the crowd to itself
'his was an ^ i f 3 Crowd ex c ePt in purely numerical terms.
rehitecturai evolup levem ent 'he m useum , it also had parallels in the
'°n o f the fair. The elevated promenade o f Luna Park
 .H IS T O R Y A N D T H E O R Y

echoed B uckingham ’s colonnades o f m orality (see Figure 1.8) ■

observation tow er in the pool area o f the park provided f0r as \
surveillance sim ilar to that o f B uckingham ’s central tower (see p j'Pan°Ptic
W hile closely interconnected in many w ays, the architectural d e v ^ ^ 1,5l
leading to this scopic regulation o f the fair were distinct from those
with the developm ent o f exhibitionary institutions. Indeed, t h e y ^ 0^ 1^
ob viously indebted to the discourses o f town planning which, m ^
Haussm ann’s surgical d issection o f Paris, aim ed at the moral regu]atj °i
population by opening up the streets to the cleansing light o f public i ° П° ^ e
- albeit, in the case o f Luna Park, Haussm ann’s influence was ro u te d 0,1
ideal city o f light, C h ica g o ’s W hite C ity (see B oyer 1986). The^ 11131
however, was essen tially the sam e in installing a scopic regime which
the breakdown and individuation o f the crowd. The contrasting seen J
Southwark Fair in 1733 jnakes the point (see Figure 1.10). It was in this f
- the grotesque body o f the people appearing in all its tumultuous disord
that conservatives had feared the crowd w ould inflict all its excesses on the
m useum . The early nineteenth-century depiction o f the behaviour of the
popular classes in W illiam B u llo ck ’s com m ercial m useum shows the transfer
ence o f m eanings from the one scene to the other (see Figure 1.11).
F i g u r e 1 .9 Observation tower at Luna Park
Source: K as s o n ( 1 9 7 8 )

Figure 1.8 Elevated promenade at Luna Park

Source: K a s s o n ( 1 9 7 8 ) Source • f ‘8 u r e 1 1 0 Southwark Fair, 1733
18th c ’ ^ 0sen^e ^ ’ Tl,e Theatre o f London Fairs in the
entury, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1960.
 . H I ST O R Y A N D T H E O R Y

Figure 1.11 Bullock’s Museum of Natural Curiosities

Source : Altick (1978).

In the event these apprehensions proved unfounded - partly because of the

new tech n ologies o f regulation that were developed by public museums i
related institutions, and partly because o f the parallel developments which
reorganized the social and architectural relations o f popular recreations. B)
the end o f the century, m useum s had, as G eorge Brown Goode put it, become
‘p assion less reform ers’, capable o f breaking up, segregating and regulating
the conduct o f those w ho entered through their doors. It was also true that
the cultural environm ent surrounding the m useum no longer delivered a
row dy crowd to those doors. This is not to say the m useum visitor and the fair-
goer were indistinguishable: to the contrary, they were significantly different
from one another even w hen they were the sam e peop le. The two activities
were perceived as different cultural o cca sio n s even by those who took part
in both. But the gap betw een them had lessen ed to the degree that both
developed sim ilar techniques for regulating the conduct o f their participant
 H E E X H I B I T I O N ARY C O M P L E X

• F o u cau lt on the a s y lu m , the clin ic, and the prison as institutional

ln reVieW"I'1s of power and know ledge relations, D ouglas Crimp su ggests that
articulanons^b^ institution 0 f continem ent ripe for analysis in Fou-
'term s - the m useum - and another d iscipline - art h isto ry ’ (Crimp
iq«5-S45) C;imp is no doubt right, although the terms o f his proposal are
misleadingly restrictive. For the em ergence o f the art m useum w as clo sely
related to that of a wider range o f institutions - history and natural scien ce
museums, dioramas and panoramas, national and, later, international ex h ib i­
tions, arcades and department stores - which served as linked sites for the
development and circulation o f new d iscip lin es (history, biology, art history,
anthropology) and their discursive form ations (the past, evolution, aesthetics,
man) as w ell as for the developm ent o f new tech n ologies o f vision . Further­
more, w hile these com prised an intersecting set o f institutional and d iscip lin ­
ary relations which might jbe productively analysed as particular articulations
of power and know ledge, the suggestion that they should be construed as
institutions of confinement is curious. It seem s to im ply that works o f art had
previously wandered through the streets o f Europe like the Ships o f F ools in
Foucault s M adness a n d C iv ilisa tio n ; or that g eo lo g ica l and natural history
pecimens had been displayed before the world, like the condem ned on the
^ca old, rather than being withheld from public gaze, secreted in the stu d io lo
ca b in e t^ ° Г ШаС*е accessible only to the lim ited gaze o f high society in the
enciosed ^h' CUr‘eUX aristocracy (Figure 2.1). M useum s may have
°Pened t o ° J eCtS W't*1’n w a**s’ biat the nineteenth century saw their doors
t0 a disnl- C |P nera' Pabhc - w itn esses w hose presence was just as essential
Panishmpn^ ° f 0Wer as bad been that o f the p eop le before the spectacle o f

°* ^'sciplinar а ’ П° 1 con bnem ent but o f exh ib ition, form ing a com plex
,K i Uxtaposed T ^ °Wer reiations w hose developm ent might more fruitfully
^arcerai archipe^a ra,ther than aligned with, the form ation o f F oucault’s
Uni$h is one in6 'h'0 ^ ° Г m ovem ent Foucault traces in D isc ip lin e a n d
tl)nc*emnecJ - whi tTh ° ^ ects anc^ bodies - the scaffold and the body o f the
ad previously form ed a part o f the public display o f

59
 . HISTORY AND THEORY

Figure 2.1 The cabinet of curiosities: the Metallotheca of

Michele Mercati in the Vatican, 1719
Source : Impey and M acG re g o r (1985).

pow er were withdrawn from the public gaze as punishm ent increasingly toot
the form o f incarceration. N o longer inscribed w ithin a public d r a m a t u r g y ot
power, the body o f the condem ned com es to be caught up within an inward-
looking w eb o f pow er relations. Subjected to om nipresent forms of s u r v e il ­
lance through which the m essage o f pow er was carried directly to it so as to
render it d ocile, the body no longer served as the surface on which, throug
the system o f retaliatory marks inflicted on it in the name o f the s o v e r e i g n
the lesson s o f pow er were written for others to read:

The scaffold , where the body o f the tortured crim inal had been expose^
to the ritually m anifest force o f the sovereign, the punitive (
w hich the representation o f punishm ent was perm anently a v a i l a b l e Я
and
the social body, w as replaced by a great en clo sed , с ° т р 1еХ ^,ate —
hierarchised structure that was integrated into the very body of the s
apparatus. , j6)
(Foucault 1977:
trust. * С
The institutions com prising ‘the exhibitionary co m p lex ’, by соП n(j privill{
involved in the transfer o f objects and b odies from the e n c l o s e d an 1

60
 THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

. t h e y |iad previously been displayed (but to a restricted

ains in wh'C , ssively more open and public arenas where, through the
d°^lic) into Pr0greSw h jc h they were subjected, they form ed v eh icles for
pU resei,tati0nSbroadcasting the m essages o f pow er (but o f a different type)
rjbjng and
;;;;;uSh°ut s0ClCttysets o f institutions and their accom panying k n ow led ge/
' tw o differen then w hose histories, in these respects, run in opposing
ро*'еГ relatY°nthey are also parallel histories. The exhibitionary com plex and
directions- 'i eIrchi iag0 develop over roughly the same period - the late
the earceral m id. nineteenth century - and achieve developed articu-
eighteenth to principles they em bodied w ithin a decade or so o f one
lations of t regards the opening o f the new prison at Mettray in 1840
another. J ^ ent in cthe developm ent o f the carceral system . W hy Mettray?
aS a key ™oucault argueS) ‘it is the disciplinary form at its m ost extrem e, the
whjch a r e . concentrated all the coercive tech n ologies o f behaviour
viously found in the cloister, prison, school or regim ent and w hich, in
b^ng brought together in one p lace, served as a guide for the future
development o f carceral institutions’ (Foucault 1977: 293). In Britain, the
opening o f P en ton ville M odel Prison in 1842 is often view ed in a sim ilar
light. Less than a decade later the Great Exhibition o f 1851 (see Figure 2.2)
brought together an ensem ble o f disciplines and techniques o f display that
had been developed within the previous histories o f m useum s, panoramas,
Mechanics’ Institute exhibitions, art galleries, and arcades. In doing so, it
translated these into exhibitionary form s w hich, in sim ultaneously ordering
objects for public inspection and ordering the public that inspected, were to
have a profound and lasting influence on the subsequent d evelopm ent o f
museums, art galleries, exp osition s, and department stores.
Nor are these entirely separate histories. At certain points they overlap,
often with a transfer o f m eanings and effects betw een them. To understand
■auh 'nterrelat'ons’ however, it w ill be necessary, in borrow ing from Fou-
pow' terms he proposes for investigating the developm ent o f
the set ? ° W*ec^ e f ^ t i o n s during the form ation o f the modern period. For
complex Г 0" re*at*ons associated with the developm ent o f the exhibitionary
from his S6ryes.as a check to the generalizing con clusions Foucault derives
4uestion hisarninat*°n carceral system . In particular, it calls into
v'dualizing anch^geSt' ° n l^at penitentiary m erely perfected the indi-
ing of forms о |ПОГта1.'г ‘п£ techn ologies associated with a veritable swarm-
su,fuse society Sarve'**ance and disciplinary m echanism s w hich cam e to
^ ‘s is not to su 'l a nCW ~ аПС* Pervasive - political econom y o f power.
exhibitionary con fT * tec^n° i° S ie s o f surveillance had no place in the
Teciucle produced* ^ ^Ut rat^er tplat their intrication with new form s o f
([i ‘eh power was e Г Ш° Ге cornP^ex and rtuanced set o f relations through
6 PoPulace than anci relayed to - and, in part, through and by -
the Foucaultian account allow s.

61
Figure 2.2 The Great Exhibition, 4851: the Western, or British, Nave, looking East
Source : Plate by H. O w en and M. Ferrier.

F oucault’s primary con cern , o f cou rse, is with the problem of order. He
co n ceiv es the d evelopm ent o f new form s o f d iscip lin e and s u r v e i l l a n c e , as
Jeffrey M inson puts it, as an 'attem pt to reduce an ungovernable popul“u
to a m ultiply d ifferentiated p o p u la tio n ', parts o f ‘an historical movemtf
aim ed at transform ing h ighly disruptive eco n o m ic conflicts and politic
form s o f disorder into q uasi-techn ical or moral problem s for social aC*min^
tration’. T hese m echanism s assum ed, M inson con tinu es, ‘that the ke>
p op u lace’s social and political unruliness and also the means of со .
it lies in the “ o p a city ” o f the populace to the forces o f order' (Mins0^ or(jer.
2 4). The exh ib itionary com p lex was also a response to the problem
but one w hich worked d ifferen tly in seek in g to transform that pro ^ до
one o f culture - a question o f w inning hearts and m inds as we -ons
d iscip lin in g and training o f b odies. A s such, its constituent
‘" o r e ^ '
reversed the orientations o f the d isciplinary apparatuses in seeking ^ ^до.
the forces and principles o f order v isib le to the p opulace - t r a n s f o r m
 THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

. . nry _ rather than vice versa. They sought not to map

a people - a C'U rder to know the populace by rendering it v isib le to
A s o c ia l body in the provision o f object lesso n s in pow er - the power
Ih; er. I n s t e a d - ‘hr° ange things and bodies for public display - they sought
P”'-ommand ant a)e and en m asse rather than individually, to know rather
!„ allow the pe°o b e c o m e the subjects rather than the objects o f k now ledge.
[hanbe kn0Wnhe'y sought also to allow the p eop le to know and thence to
Vet. ideally- t e y ^ ^ beCom e, in seein g th em selv es from the side o f
regulate ^ " ’^ h j e c t s and the ob jects o f k n ow led ge, know ing pow er and
powe*. both 1 neQWS> and know ing th em selves as (id eally) known by power,
w hat p o w e r > principle o f self-su rv eilla n ce and, hen ce, self-
interiorizing its gaze F
regulation-^ ^ ^ s£t o f cu ]tural tech n ologies concerned to organize a
" 1S- T - self-regulating citizenry that I propose to exam ine the form ation
Vf h e 'w h ib itio n a r y .com plex. In doing so, I shall draw on the Gramscian
C f v e o f the ethical and educative function o f the modern state to
account for the relations o f this com p lex to the developm ent o f the bourgeois
democratic polity. Yet, w hile w ishing to resist a tendency in Foucault towards
misplaced generalizations, it is to F oucault’s work that I shall look to unravel
the relations between know ledge and pow er effected by the techn ologies o f
vision em bodied in the architectural form s o f the exhibitionary com plex.

DISCIPLINE, S U R V E IL L A N C E , S PE C T A C L E

In discussing the proposals o f late eighteenth-century penal reform ers,

Foucault remarks that punishment, w hile rem aining a ‘legib le le sso n ’ organ­
ized in relation to the body o f the offend ed , was en visioned as ‘a school rather
than a festival; an ever-open book rather than a cerem on y’ (Foucault 1977:
")■ Hence- in schem es to use con vict labour in public con texts, it was
envisaged that the convict would repay society tw ice: once by the labour he
andVl^e^' 3nd.a second time by the signs he produced, a focus o f both profit
b e r J 8n,<kati0n *П serving as an ever-present reminder o f the connection
oetween crime and punishment:

being ca a"o w ed to com e to the places where the penalty is

grown men'0 p 1*1' ^ ere tPle^ attend their classes in civ ics. And
of Punishm^' Peri° diCally re'earn the laws. Let us con ceiv e o f places
Sundays П1 aS 3 ^ arden ° f the Laws that fam ilies w ould visit on

•n the event, (Foucault 1977: 111)

^orceral system^* Und"11 к”1 t°°*CU d '^ erent Patb w hh the developm ent o f the
aghteenth.cent r er oth the a n cien reg im e and the projects o f the late
^Presentation Both1™ 6*-8' Pun‘s^ment had form ed part o f a public system
regim es obeyed a logic according to which 'secret

63
 HISTORY AND THEORY

punishm ent is a punishm ent h alf-w asted ’ (Foucault 1977; l i j \

developm ent o f the carceral system , by contrast, punishment w a s the"
from the public gaze in being enacted behind the closed w , Геп10уе^ Н-ен
penitentiary, and had in view not the production o f signs for soc' S !hi
SOcietv к {
correction o f the offender. N o longer an art o f public effects 'the
_=—ed at a-----
aim —J ,
calculated rtransformation in the behaviour
. o f- the
- conPHnishrr
'
U / % 4 i i л -f f b Л
body o f the offender, no lon ger a m edium for the relay o fл sien
n n 1 /ч п п п к n 4- U — ____ 1 le d .

--------------л
was zoned as the target for disciplinary tech n ologies w hich sought 8ns ° f pqw,
the behaviour through repetition. " t0 m°dify

The body and the soul, as principles o f behaviour, form the element
is now proposed for punitive intervention. Rather than on
. . . . . . 3rt of
representation, this punitive intervention must rest on a studied m *
ulation o f the individual. . . . As for the instruments used, these are n
longer com p lex es o f representation, reinforced and circulated but
form s o f coercion , schem ata o f restraint, applied and repeated Exer
cises, not sign s . . .
(Foucault 1977: 128)

It is not this account itse lf that is in question here but some of the more
general claim s Foucault elaborates on its basis. In his discussion of ‘the
sw arm ing o f disciplinary m echan ism s’, Foucault argues that the disciplinarv
tech n ologies and form s o f observation d eveloped in the carceral system-and
esp ecially the principle o f panopticism , rendering everything visible to the
eye o f pow er - display a tendency ‘to b ecom e “ de-institutionalised”, to
em erge from the closed fortresses in w hich they once functioned and to
circulate in a “ fre e” state'* (Foucault 1977: 211). T hese new systems of
su rveillan ce, m apping the socia l body so as to render it knowable and
am enable to social regulation, mean, Foucault argues, that ‘one can speak of
the form ation o f a disciplinary society . . . that stretches from the e n c lo se d
d iscip lin es, a sort o f social “ quarrantine”, to an indefinitely g e n e r a lis a b le
m echanism o f “ p anopticism ” ’ (ibid.: 2 1 6 ). A society, according to Foucau^
in his approving quotation o f Julius, that ‘is one not o f spectacle, but о
su rveillan ce’:

A ntiquity had been a civilisation o f spectacle. ‘To render a c c e s s i b l e ^ ®

a multitude o f men the inspection o f a sm all number o f objects •
w as the problem to w hich the architecture o f tem ples, t h e a t r e s a
i element
circuses responded . . . . In a society in which the p r i n c i p a l с
e b a n d .
are no longer the com m unity and public life, but, on the о ^ ^
private individuals and, on the other, the state, relations c‘^ aS
regulated only in a form that is the exact reverse o f the s p e c t a c l e - ^ ^
to the m odern age, to the ever-grow ing influence o f the s t a t e , t o Qf
more
in profound intervention
u it piuiuuiiu u iiti vtuuuii in all
an the details auu
in t utiana and an
all t h e re . g ]j(S
social life, that was reserved the task o f increasing and per

64

i
 THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

using and directing towards that great aim the building

c,uaranteeS’ ^on o f buildings intended to observe a great m ultitude o f

^ „ a 't the same time. (Foucault 1977: 2 1 6 -1 7 )

ciet y this general characterization o f the m odality o f

A disciplinary s o c i e t i e s has proved one o f the m ore influential aspects o f
power in mode!|n y e t it is an incautious generalization and one produced by
Foucault's w orof m isattention. For it by no m eans fo llo w s from the fact that
a peculiarkl" °ceased t0 be a spectacle that the function o f d isplaying power
p u n is h m e n t h a ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ a)| tQ see _ had itself fallen into ab eyan ce. 1 Indeed,
_ of makmg; in Д ^ suggestSi the Crystal Palace m ight serve as the em blem
a sGraerne atural sed es which Could be ranged against that o f the asylum ,
^ "oi^ an li prison in its continuing concern with the display o f objects to a
great multitude:
The C rystal P a lace reversed the panoptical principle by fixing the eyes
of the m u l t i t u d e upon an assem blage o f glam orous com m odities. The
Panopticon w as designed so that everyone could be seen; the Crystal
Palace was designed so that everyone could see.
(D avison 1982/83: 7)

This opposition is a little overstated in that one o f the architectural

innovations of the Crystal Palace con sisted in the arrangement o f relations
between the public and exhibits so that, w hile everyone could see, there were
also vantage points from which everyone could be seen , thus com bining the
tunctions of spectacle andi surveillance. N one the less, the shift o f em phasis
is worth preserving for the m om ent, particularly as its force is by no means
limited to the Great Exhibition. Even a cursory glan ce through Richard
Altick s The Shows o f L ondon con vin ces that the nineteenth century was quite
unprecedented in the social effort it devoted to the organization o f spectacles
S erv e d f° r mCreasin^ lar8e anc* undifferentiated publics (A ltick 1978).
D r af peCtS t*lese developm ents merit a prelim inary consideration.
- to be're d ГбПС*епсУ kor s°ciety itself - in its constituent parts and as a whole
•he city " u!? aS 3 sPectac*e - This w as esp ecially clear in attempts to render
life we-e'SI ^ dence know able, as a totality. W hile the depths o f city
ereasing|y peaetrated by d eveloping networks o f su rveillan ce, cities in-
°Pen not mere!16 ^ tde*r Processes t0 public inspection, laying their secrets
mdeed. making^th*' ^3Ze Pow er but, in principle, to that o f everyone;
by the turn of the ^ Specu*ar dom inance o f the eye o f power available to all.
^ Ven tours of theCentUr^’ ^ ean M acCannell notes, sightseers in Paris ‘were
^ e government prin|jWerS' morS ue’ a slaughterhouse, a tobacco factory,
anci lhe supreme cr 1П^ ° ^ с е >a tapestry works, the mint, the stock exchange
UfSc°nferred on] rt m se ss’on (M acCannell 1976: 57). N o doubt such
n unaginary dom inance over the city, an illusory rather

65
 •H I S T O R Y A N D T H E O R Y
than substantive controlling visio n , as Dana Brand suggests was h
earlier panoramas (Brand 1986). Yet the principle they embod' 6CaseV
enough and, in seeking to render cities know able in exhibiting tkT^ Was rtj
o f their organizing institutions, they are without parallel in the 6 W° r^n
^garjier regim es where the view o f pow er w as alw ays ‘from be6Ctac|esof
am bition towards a specular dom inance over a totality was even ° W' ^ is
in the con ception o f international exh ib itions w hich, in their he^d^ ^ '^ t
to make the w hole world, past and present, m etonym ically ava l кУ’ S° u^t
assem blages o f objects and peoples they brought together and fr e 'n ^
: tow ers, to lay it before a controlling vision.
Second, the increasing involvem ent o f the state in the provision ■ 0f a new sy^ e^ , n (0 a li if the asym m etry o f these m ovem ents is com p elling,
sp ectacles. In the British case, and even more so the A m erica ^ SUCtl
involvem ent w as typically indirect.2 N ich olas Pearson notes that wh'iSUCtl
sphere o f culture fell increasingly under governm ental regulation , е '*1е
second half o f the nineteenth century, the preferred form o f adminis^
for m useum s, art galleries, and exh ib itions was (and remains) via board
trustees. Through these, the state could retain effectiv e direction over poljf'
by virtue o f its control over appointm ents but without involving itself in the
day-to-day conduct o f affairs and so, seem ingly, violating the Kantian
im perative in subordinating culture to practical requirements (Pearson 1982
8 -1 3 , 4 6 -7 ). A lthough the state was in itially prodded only reluctantly into
this sphere o f activity, there should be no doubt o f the importance it
eventually assum ed. M useum s, galleries, and, more intermittently, exhibi­
tions played a pivotal role in the form ation o f the modern state and are
fundam ental to its con ception as, am ong other things, a set o f educative and
civ ilizin g agen cies. Since the l£te nineteenth century, they have been ranked
highly in the funding priorities o f all developed nation-states and have proved
remarkably influential cultural tech n o lo g ies in the degree to which they have
recruited the interest and participation o f their citizenries.
Finally, the exhibitionary com p lex provided a context for the permanent
display o f p ow er/know ledge. In his d iscu ssion o f the display o f power in l№
a n cien reg im e, Foucault stresses its ep isod ic quality. The spectacle of
scaffold form ed part o f a system o f pow er w hich ‘in the absence of con t
supervision, sought a renew al o f its e ffe c t in the spectacle ol its md1 ^ ^
m anifestations; o f a pow er that was recharged in the ritual display 0
reality as “ super-pow er” ’ (Foucault 1977: 57). It is not that the ninety ^
century dispensed entirely with the need for the periodic magnm
pow er through its ex c essiv e display, for the exp osition s played this ro • ^
did so, however, in relation to a network o f institutions which ^ Copies upon wh T erialiSm’ betw een that body and other, ‘n o n -civ iliz ed ’
m echanism s for the perm anent display o f power. And for a power
not reduced to periodic effec ts but w hich, to the contrary, manite ^ ^ nirpl
p recisely in continually d isplaying its ability to com m and, order,
objects and b odies, livin g or dead. tracin-
There is, then, another series from the one Foucault examines j J
66
THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X
cerem ony o f the scaffold to the disciplinary rigours o f the
-ft from the L. series w hich has its echo and. in som e respects, model
‘" 'it e n t i^ y - ^ n o f the socio-juridical apparatus: the trial. The scen e o f the
p o t h e r seCt'0nun,shment traversed one another as they m oved in opposite
"’ q and that pl'the e arly modern period. As punishm ent was withdrawn
!iirect'°ns dUnnf.ize and transferred to the en closed space o f the penitentiary,
from the pub*lC gs o f tria] and sentencing - w hich, except for England, had
„о the ProCe 0Stiy conducted in secret, ‘opaque not only to the public but
hitherto been m ^ h im self. (Foucault 1977: 35) - were made public as part
also to t,ie aCC^ o f judicial truth w hich, in order to function as truth, needed
l0 be made n ^ the Sym m etry o f the m ovem ent traced by the trial and
it is no morejn lhe transition they make from clo sed and restricted to open
the muS.eU™ontexts. And, as a part o f a profound transformation in their social
andpU ' it was ultimately to these institutions - and not by w itnessing
'^ sh m e m enacted in the streets nor, as Bentham had envisaged, by m aking
thepenitentiaries open to public inspection - that children, and their parents,
lere invited to attend their lessons in civ ics.
Moreover, such lesson s con sisted not in a display o f pow er w hich, in
seeking to terrorize, positioned the people on the other side o f pow er as its
potential recipients but sought rather to place the people - co n ceiv ed as a
nationalized citizenry - on this side o f power, both its subject and its
beneficiary. To identify with power, to see it as, if not directly theirs, then
indirectly so, a force regulated and channelled by s o c ie ty ’s ruling groups but
for the good o f all: this was the rhetoric o f pow er em bodied in the
exhibitionary com plex - a power made m anifest not in its ability to inflict
pain but by its ability to organize and co-ordinate an order o f things and to
produce a place for the people in relation to that order. D etailed studies o f
nineteenth-century expositions thus con sistently highlight the id eological
economy ot their organizing principles, transform ing d isplays o f m achinery
‘>ignifieUStr*a^ processes’ finished products and o b je ts d ’a rt, into material
with 6rS pro®ress ~ fiut ° f progress as a co llec tiv e national achievem ent
Powenh'tai aS thC grCat c° - ° rdinator (Silverm an 1977, Rydell 1984). This
affordinpUthSUb^Ugatet* ^ flattery’ placing itself on the side o f the people by
behind it j ^ ** P*ace within its workings; a pow er which placed the people
before it A n d ' r ^ 'П1° с о т Р*'с ’1У w ith it rather than cow ed into subm ission
’be objects o f' ^ P° Wer rnarked out the distinction betw een the subjects and
many rhetorics^0fWer П°- w ‘t*1'n national body but, as organized by the
ll>rce and theatric'^ ° d'CS t*le eppects ° f power were unleashed with as much
* 0rd*. a power w V ^ h ^ ЬеСП m an’Pest 011 the scaffold . This w as, in other
otberness rathe '.u ‘l'med at a rhetorical effect through its representation
" 11 » - an> d i“ ip 'i" " y effects.
У m terms o f its id eo lo g ica l econom y that the exhib-
67
 HISTORY AND THEORY

itionary com p lex must be assessed. W hile m useum s and exp ositi0r)s
have set out to win the hearts and minds o f their visitors, these also hr ^
their bodies with them creating architectural problem s as vexed as any ° ^ 1
by the d evelopm ent o f the carceral archipelago. The birth o f the P0sed
Foucault argues, required a new architectural problem atic:

that o f an architecture that is no longer built sim ply to be seen (as w' t,
the ostentation o f p alaces), or to observe the external space (cf ^
geom etry o f fortresses), but to perm it an internal, articulated and
detailed control - to render visible those who are inside it; in more
general term s, an architecture that w ould operate to transform indi
viduals: to act on those it shelters, to provide a hold on their conduct
to carry the effects o f pow er right to them , to make it possib le to know
them, to alter them.
(Foucault 1977: 172)

A s D avison notes, the d evelopm ent o f the exhibitionary com plex also
posed a new demand: that everyone should see, and not just the ostentation
o f im posing fafad es but their contents too. This, too, created a series of
architectural problem s w hich were ultim ately resolved only through a ‘polit­
ical econom y o f detail ’ sim ilar to that applied to the regulation o f the relations
betw een b odies, space, and tim e w ithin the penitentiary. In Britain, France,
and Germany, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed a
spate o f state-sponsored architectural com p etitions for the design o f museums
in w hich the em phasis shifted p rogressively aw ay from organizing spaces of
display for the private pleasure o f the prince or aristocrat and towards an
organization o f space and vision that w ould enable m useum s to function as
organs o f public instruction (S elin g 1967). Y et, as I have already suggested,
it is m isleading to view the architectural problem atics o f the exhibitionary
com plex as sim ply reversing the principles o f panopticism . The effect o f these
principles, Foucault argues, w as to abolish the crow d con ceived as ‘a compact
m ass, a locu s o f m ultiple exch an ges, in d ivid u alities m erging together, a
co llec tiv e e f f e c t ’ and to replace it with ‘a co llectio n o f separated indi­
v id u a lities’ (Foucault 1977: 201). H owever, as John MacArthur notes, the
Panopticon is sim ply a technique, not itse lf a disciplinary regim e or essen­
tially a part o f on e, and, like all techniques, its potential effects are not
exhausted by its deploym ent w ithin any o f the regim es in which it happens
to be used (M acArthur 1983: 1 9 2 -3 ). The peculiarity o f the exhibitionary
com plex is not to be found in its reversal o f the principles o f the Panopticon-
Rather, it con sists in its incorporation o f aspects o f those principles together
with those o f the panorama, form ing a tech n ology o f visio n which served not
to atom ize and disperse the crowd but to regulate it, and to do so by rendering
it visible to itself, by m aking the crowd itse lf the ultimate spectacle.
An instruction from a ‘Short Serm on to S ig h tseers’ at the 1901 Pan'
A m erican E xposition enjoined: ‘Please rem em ber when you get inside the
 THE E X H IB IT IO N A R Y C O M PLE X

art o f the sh o w ’ (cited in Harris 1978: 144). This was also true
«ates yoU аГ and department stores which, like m any o f the main exhibition
of iHuseUnlS 0sition s, frequently contained galleries affording a superior
^alls ot e ^ t from which the layout o f the w hole and the activities o f other
vanta?e ^ и also be ob served .3 It was, however, the ex p o sitio n s which
visitors c h j s characteristic furthest in constructing view in g positions from
j evelope coUj(j he surveyed as totalities: the function o f the E iffel Tower
which t У paris ex p0sitjon, for exam ple. To see and be seen, to survey yet
a tlhe under surveillance, the object o f an unknown but controlling look:
al"'a^Se ways, as m icro-w orlds rendered constantly v isib le to them selves,
'П ther o n s realized som e o f the ideals o f panopticism in transforming the
CXPwd into a constantly surveyed, self-w atching, self-regulating, and, as the
h^torical record su ggests, con sistently orderly public - a society watching
over itself.
Within the hierarchically organized system o f looks o f the penitentiary in
which each level o f looking is m onitored by a higher on e, the inmate
constitutes the point at which all these looks culm inate but he is unable to
return a look o f his ow n or m ove to a higher level o f vision. The exhibitionary
complex, by contrast, perfected a self-m onitoring system o f look s in which
the subject and object positions can be exchanged, in w hich the crowd com es
to commune with and regulate itse lf through interiorizing the ideal and
ordered view o f itse lf as seen from the controlling vision o f pow er - a site
of sight accessible to all. It w as in thus dem ocratizing the ey e o f power that
the expositions realized B entham ’s aspiration for a system o f looks within
which the central position w ould be available to the public at all tim es, a
model lesson in civ ic s in w hich a so ciety regulated itse lf through s e lf­
observation. But, o f course, self-ob servation from a certain perspective. As
Manfredo Tafuri puts it:

The arcades and the departm ent stores o f Paris, like the great e x ­
positions, were certainly the places in w hich the crowd, itse lf becom e
a spectacle, found the spatial and visual m eans for a self-edu cation from
the point o f view o f capital.
(Tafuri 1976: 83)

However, this w as not an achievem ent o f architecture alone. A ccount must

aHo be taken o f the forces w hich, in shaping the exhibitionary com plex,
ormed both its publics and its rhetorics.

S E E IN G T H IN G S

tJ|SeemS unlikely> com e the revolution, that it w ill occur to anyone to storm
British M useum . Perhaps it alw ays was. Yet, in the early days o f its
^ 0гУ, the fear that it might incite the ven gean ce o f the m ob w as real enough.
n ^80, in the m idst o f the Gordon R iots, troops were housed in the gardens

69
 HISTORY AND THEORY

and building and, in 1848, w hen the Chartists marched to present the People>
Charter to Parliament, the authorities prepared to defend the museum as
vigilantly as if it had been a penitentiary. The museum sta ff were sworn jn
as special constables; fortifications were constructed around the perimeter- a
garrison o f m useum staff, regular troops, and C helsea pensioners, armed wfib
m uskets, pikes, and cu tlasses, and with provisions for a three-day siege
occupied the buildings; stones were carried to the roof to be hurled down on
the Chartists should they succeed in breaching the outer d efen ces.4
This fear o f the crowd haunted debates on the m useum ’s p olicy for over a
century. A ck now ledged as one o f the first public m useum s, its conception of
the public w as a lim ited one. V isitors w ere admitted only in groups o f fifteen
and were ob liged to subm it their credentials for inspection prior to admission
w hich was granted only if they were found to be ‘not ex cep tio n a b le’ (Wittlin
1949: 113). W hen changes to this p olicy were proposed, they were resisted
by both the m u seu m ’s trustees and its curators, apprehensive that the
unruliness o f the m ob w ould mar the ordered display o f culture and
k now ledge. W hen, shortly after the m useum ’s establishm ent, it was proposed
that there be public days on which unrestricted access w ould be allow ed, the
proposal w as scuttled on the grounds, as one trustee put it, that som e o f the
visitors from the streets w ould inevitably be ‘in liq u or’ and ‘w ill never be
kept in order’. And if public days should be allow ed, Dr Ward continued:

then it w ill be n ecessary for the Trustees to have a presence o f a

C om m ittee o f them selves attending, with at least tw o Justices o f the
Peace and the constables o f the d ivision o f B loom sbury . . . supported
by a guard such as one as usually attends at the P lay-H ouse, and even
after all this, A ccidents m ust and w ill happen.
* (Cited in M iller 1974: 62)

Sim ilar ob jections were raised w hen, in 1835, a select com m ittee was
appointed to inquire into the m anagem ent o f the m useum and suggested that
it m ight be opened over Easter to facilitate attendance by the labouring
cla sses. A few decades later, however, the issue had been finally resolved in
favour o f the reform ers. The m ost significant shift in the state’s attitude
tow ards m useum s w as marked by the op en ing o f the South Kensington
M useum in 1857 (Figure 2.3). A dm inistered, eventually, under the auspices
o f the Board o f Education, the m useum w as o fficia lly dedicated to the service
o f an extended and undifferentiated public w ith opening hours and an
ad m ission s p o licy d esign ed to m axim ize its a ccessib ility to the working
cla sses. It proved remarkably su ccessfu l, too, attracting over 15 m illion visits
b etw een 1857 and 1883, over 6.5 m illion o f w hich were recorded in the
even in gs, the m ost popular tim e for w orking-class visitors w ho, it seems,
rem ained largely sober. Henry C ole, the first director o f the m useum and an
ardent advocate o f the role m useum s should play in the form ation o f a rational
p ub lic culture, pointedly rebutted the con ception s o f the unruly mob which

70
 THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

hid in f ° rrn ed ear^er objections to open ad m issions p o licies. Inform ing a

HoUse o f C om m ons com m ittee in 1860 that on ly one person had had to be
xcluded fo r not being able to w alk steadily, he went on to note that the sale
of alcOho1 in the refreshment room s had averaged out, as A ltick sum m arizes
°t at ‘tw0 and a h alf drops o f w in e’ fourteen-fifteenths o f a drop o f brandy,
and ten a n d a half drops o f bottled ale per cap ita’ (A ltick 1978: 500). A s the
evidence o f the orderliness of the n ew ly extended m useum public m ounted,
even the British M useum relented and, in 1883, embarked on a programme
0 f e le c trificatio n to permit evening opening.
th e S o u th K ensington M useum thus marked a significant turning-point in
the development o f British m useum p olicy in clearly enunciating the prin­
ciples o f the m odern m useum con ceived as an instrument o f public education.
It provided the axis around which London’s m useum com p lex w as to develop
t h r o u g h o u t the rest o f the century and exerted a strong influence on the

F‘l ure 2.3 The South Kensington Museum (later V ito ria and Albert)^
the South Court, eastern portion, from the south, 1876 (drawing у
Source : Physik (1982).

71
 HISTORY AND THEORY

developm ent o f m useum s in the provincial cities and tow ns. These
rapidly took advantage o f the M useum Bill o f 1845 (hitherto used relaf1'0'* *
sparingly) w hich em powered local authorities to establish museums a n ^ I
galleries: the number o f public m useum s in Britain increased from 50 in I
to 200 in 1900 (W hite 1983). In its turn, however, the South Kensi ^ I
Museum had derived its primary im petus from the Great Exhibition whicjf01' I
d evelopin g a new p ed agogic relation betw een state and people, had 1,1 I
subdued the spectre o f the crowd. This spectre had been raised again in^ S° I
debates set in m otion by the proposal that adm ission to the exhibition sh I
be free. It could only be expected, one correspondent to The Tim es are I
that both the rules o f decorum and the rights o f property w ould be violated • I
entry were made free to ‘his m ajesty the m o b ’. These fears were exacerbated I
by the revolutionary upheavals o f 1848, occasion in g several European mon
archs to petition that the public be banned from the opening ceremon I
(planned for May D ay) for fear that this m ight spark o ff an insurrection which I
in turn, might give rise to a general European conflagration (Shorter 1966) ~
And then there was the fear o f social contagion should the labouring classes I
be allow ed to rub shoulders with the upper classes.
In the event, the Great E xhibition proved a transitional form. While open
to all, it also stratified its public in providing different days for different *
cla sses o f visitors regulated by varying prices o f adm ission. In spite of this
lim itation, the exhibition proved a major spur to the developm ent of open-
door p o licies. Attracting over 6 m illion visitors itself, it also vastly stimulated 1
the attendance at L ondon’s main historic sites and m useum s: visits to the
British M useum , for exam ple, increased from 72 0 ,6 4 3 in 1850 to 2,230,242
in 1851 (A ltick 1978: 4 6 7 ). Perhaps m ore important, though, was the j
Orderliness o f the public w hich, in spite o f the 1,000 extra constables and
10,000 troops kept on stand-by, proved duly appreciative, decorous in its |
bearing and entirely apolitical. More than that, the exhibition transformed the
m any-headed m ob into an ordered crow d, a part o f the spectacle and a sight
o f pleasure in itself. V ictoria, in recording her im pressions o f the opening I
cerem ony, d w elt particularly on her pleasure in seein g so large, so orderly, j
and so peaceable a crowd assem bled in one place:

The Green Park and H yde Park were one m ass o f d en sely crowded
human bein gs, in the highest good hum our and m ost enthusiastic. I
never saw H yde Park look as it did, being filled with crow ds as far as
the eye could see.
(Cited in G ibbs-Sm ith 1981: 18)

Nor w as this entirely unprepared for. The w ork in g-class public the
exhibition attracted was one w hose conduct had been regulated into appf°Prl
ate form s in the earlier history o f the M echanics Institute exhibition*-
D evoted largely to the d isplay o f industrial objects and processes, the!ie
exh ib itions pioneered p olicies o f low adm ission prices and late opening honr*

72
 T HE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

w orking-class attendance long before these were adopted within

toe» c° Uraf enlUSeum com plex. In doing so, m oreover, they sought to tutor
the officia on the m odes o f deportment required if they were to be admitted.
theirV'sit° r booklets advised w orking-class visitors how to present them-
ItistruCtl° n . particular stress on the need to change out o f their working
selves, P a° , s0 as hot to soil the exhibits, but also so as not to detract
clothes - P o f the overall spectacle; indeed, to becom e parts o f it:
from the pleasu
is a visitor o f another sort; the m echanic has resolved to treat
НеГе if with a few hours’ holiday and recreation; he leaves the ‘grimy
lilTT^e ^ t______ Л/-»n n i ч о Kio Q o t n r r l a i ; n m l i t c i i i t b p a n n n a r e
1'"1If>M he dirty bench, and donning his Saturday night suit he appears
,. h0p
h o p ’-, Ult
1 W J
L*v.rp
before us - an honourable and worthy object.
(K usam itsu 1980: 77)

brief the Great Exhibition and subsequently the public m useum s de-
^loped in its wake found them selves heirs to a public which had already
been formed by a set o f p edagogic relations w hich, developed initially by
vo lu n ta ry organizations - in what Gramsci w ould call the realm o f civ il
so c ie ty - were henceforward to be more thoroughgoingly prom oted within
the social body in being subjected to the direction o f the state.
Not, then, a history o f confinem ent but one o f the opening up o f objects to
more public contexts o f inspection and visibility: this is the direction o f
movement em bodied in the form ation o f the exhibitionary com p lex. A
movement which sim ultaneously helped to form a new public and inscribe it
in new relations o f sight and vision . O f course, the precise trajectory o f these
developments in Britain was not fo llo w ed elsew h ere in Europe. N one the less,
the general direction o f developm ent was the sam e. W hile earlier collection s
(whether o f scientific objects, cu riosities, or works o f art) had gone under a
variety o f names (m useum s, stu d io li, ca b in ets d e s cu rieu x, W u n d erka m m ern ,
Kunstkammern) and fulfilled a variety o f functions (the storing and d is­
semination o f k now ledge, the display o f princely and aristocratic power, the
advancement o f reputations and careers), they had m ostly shared two prin-
C1ples: that o f private ow nership and that o f restricted a ccess.5 The form ation
°f the exhibitionary com plex in volved a break with both in effectin g the
transfer o f significant quantities o f cultural and scientific property from
Private into public ow nership where they were housed w ithin institutions
Ministered by the state for the benefit o f an extended general public,
thi 6 S1®n*^cance ° f the form ation o f the exhibitionary com p lex, view ed in
Perspective, was that o f providing new instruments for the moral and
draw ге§ и*а1'оп o f the w orking classes. M useum s and ex p o sitio n s, in
d ln§ oa the techniques and rhetorics o f display and ped agogic relations
com ^ *П ear^ er nineteenth-century exhibitionary form s, provided a
togeth 1П W^*C^ w or*c‘ng ‘ ar|d m iddle-class publics could be brought
them fCr аПС^ ^оггпег ~ having been tutored into form s o f behaviour to suit
0r the occasion - could be exposed to the im proving influence o f the

73
 I J I S T OR Y A N D T H E O R Y

latter. A history, then, o f the form ation o f a new public and its inscripti0n •
new relations o f pow er and k now ledge. But a history accom panied ц"*
by,
parallel one aim ed at the destruction ot earlier traditions o f popular e x h ib iti0
hit)
and the publics they im plied and produced. In Britain, this took the form 11
’ "ite*
a lia, o f a concerted attack on popular fairs ow ing to their association with r'
carnival, and, in their sid e-sh ow s, the display o f m onstrosities and curiosif
w hich, no longer enjoying elite patronage, were now perceived as im pedim*^
to the rationalizing influence o f the restructured exhibitionary com plex: S
Yet, by the end o f the century, fairs were to be actively promoted as an aid
rather than a threat to public order. This was partly because the mechanization
o f fairs meant that their entertainm ents were increasingly brought into line
with the values o f industrial civ iliza tio n , a testim ony to the virtues 0f
progress.6 But it was also a con seq u en ce o f changes in the conduct 0f
fairgoers.^ By the end o f the century, Hugh Cunningham argues, ‘fairgoing
had becom e a relatively routine ingredient in the accepted world o f leisure'
as ‘fairs becam e tolerated, safe, and in due course a subject o f nostalgia and
revival’ (Cunningham 1982: 163). The primary site for this transformation of
fairs and the conduct o f their publics - although never quite so complete as
Cunningham suggests - w as supplied by the fair zon es o f the late-nineteenth-
century exp osition s. It w as here that tw o cultures abutted on to one another,
the fair zon es form ing a kind o f buffer region betw een the official and the
popular culture with the form er seeking to reach into the latter and moderate
it. Initially, these fair zon es estab lish ed them selves independently of the
official exp osition s and their organizing com m ittees. The product of the
initiative o f popular show m en and private traders eager to exploit the market
the exp osition s supplied, they consisted largely o f an a d h o c m elange of both
new (m echanical rides) and traditional popular entertainm ents (freak shows,
etc.) w hich frequently m ocked the pretensions o f the expositions they
.ad join ed . Burton B enedict sum m arizes the relations betw een expositions and
their am usem ent zones in late nineteenth-century A m erica as follow s:
Many o f the display techniques used in the am usem ent zone seemed to
parody those o f the main fair. G igantism becam e enorm ous toys or
grotesque m onsters. Im pressive high structures becam e collapsing or
w hirling am usem ent ‘rid es’. The solem n fem ale allegorical figures that
sym bolised nations (M iss Liberty, Britannia) were replaced by comic
m ale figures (U ncle Sam, John B ull). At the C hicago fair o f 1893 the
gilded fem ale statue o f the R epublic on the Court o f Honour contrasted
with a large m echanical U n cle Sam on the M idw ay that delivered forty
thousand sp eech es on the virtues o f Hub Gore shoe elastics. S e r io u s
propagandists for manufacturers and governm ents in the main fair gave
way to barkers and pitch men. The public no longer had to play the role
o f im pressed spectators. They were invited to b ecom e frivolous partictp
ants. Order was replaced by jum ble, and instruction by entertainment-
(B en ed ict 1983: 33

74
 THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

(icial exposition led to ‘exp osition organisers frequently attempting to

° - tmusement zone into an educational enterprise or at least to regulate
111ГП* C of exhibit sh ow n ’. In this, they were never entirely su ccessfu l. Into
^ tieth-century, the am usem ent zones rem ained sites o f illicit pleasures
the twen
b u r le s q u e show s and prostitution - and o f ones which the exp osition s
Ives aimed to render archaic. A ltick ’s ‘m onster-m ongers and retailers
Hf®. strange sig h ts’ seem to have been as much in evidence at the Panama
010 , Exhibition o f 1915 as they had been, a century earlier, at St
PaC1‘ lom ew ’s Fair, W ordsw orth’s Parliam ent o f M onsters (M cC ullough
,. 76). None the less, what w as evident w as a significant restructuring in
ideological econom y o f such am usem ent zon es as a con sequ en ce o f the
dTree to which, in subjecting them to more stringent form s o f control and
direction, exposition authorities w ere able to align their them atics to those o f
the official expositions them selves and, thence, to those o f the rest o f the
exhibitionary com plex. M useum s, the evidence su ggests, appealed largely to
the middle classes and the sk illed and respectable working cla sses and it
seems likely that the sam e w as true o f exp o sitio n s. T he link betw een
expositions and their adjoining fair zon es, however, provided a route through
which the exhibitionary com p lex and the d iscip lin es and k now ledges which
shaped its rhetorics acquired a far w ider and more exten sive social influence.

TH E E X H IB IT IO N A R Y D IS C IP L IN E S

The space o f representation constituted by the exhibitionary com plex was

shaped by fhe relations betw een an array o f new d isciplines: history, art
history, archaeology, geology, b iology, and anthropology. W hereas the
disciplines associated with the carceral archipelago were concerned to reduce
aggregates to individualities, rendering the latter visib le to pow er and so
amenable to control, the orientation o f these d iscip lin es - as deployed in the
exhibitionary com plex - might best be sum m arized as that o f ‘show and t e ll’.
They tended also to be generalizing in their focu s. Each d iscipline, in its
museological deploym ent, aim ed at the representation o f a type and its
lnsertion in a developm ental sequence for display to a public.
c principles o f classification and display were alien to the eighteenth
Pla ecC ^ US’ *n ^obn Soane's M useum , architectural styles are dis-
chan 1П ° rc*er t0 dem onstrate their essential perm anence rather than their
frame6 ^еУе^0 Ртеп1 (D avies 1984: 54). The em ergence o f a historicized
mUseu b)r lhe display o f human artefacts in early-ninetenth-century
StephemSRWas t*1US a s *gmficant innovation. But not an isolated one. A s
mu ШП sb o w s’ lhe em ergence o f a ‘historical fram e’ for the display
diSci 1 6Xhibits was concurrent w ith the developm ent o f an array o f
atl amhe ^ 3nC* otber Practices w hich aim ed at the life-lik e reproduction o f
nt|cated past and its representation as a series o f stages leading to

75
 . HISTORY AN D THEORY

the present, - the new practices o f history w riting associat

historical novel and the developm ent o f history as an em piric^ VV't|' th
for exam ple (Bann 1984). B etw een them , these constituted a ne
representation concerned to depict the developm ent o f p e o p le s ^ ^ аСе '
civilization s through tim e con ceived as a progressive series o f d ' States,
stages. “ 1 CVe'0p,1'enJ
The French R evolu tion, G erm aine Bazin su g g ests, played ^
in op en ing up this space o f representation by breaking the chain o f ^ Г°'е
su ccession that had p reviously vou ch safed a unity to the flow - ^ nastic
ization o f tim e (B azin 1967: 2 1 8 ). Certainly, it w as in F r a n c ^ °rgai1'
toricized principles o f m useum d isp lay were first developed B a z in ^ ^'s
the form ative influence o f the M usee des m onum ents fran^ais ( 17^ ^
exh ib iting works o f art in galleries devoted to different periods the ' ®
route leading from earlier to later periods, with a v iew to dem onstrat^110'*
the painterly con ven tions peculiar to each epoch and their historical deve]0"1
m ent. Fie accords a sim ilar sig n ifica n ce to A lexandre du Somrrrrard'
co llec tio n at the H otel de C luny w h ich , as Bann show s, aimed at ‘
integrative con stru ction o f historical to ta lities’, creating the impression
o f a h istorically authentic m ilieu by su ggestin g an essential and organic
con n ection betw een artefacts displayed in room s classified by period (B anc
1984: 85).
Bann argues that these tw o principles - the g a lle ria progressiva and the
period room , som etim es em ployed sin gly, at others in combination - consti­
tute the distinctive p oetics o f the m odern historical museum. It is important
to add, though, that this poetics displayed a marked tendency to be national­
ized. If, as Bazin su ggests, the m useum becam e ‘one o f the fundamental
institutions o f the m odern state’ (B azin 1967: 169), that state was also
increasingly a nation-state. The sign ifican ce o f this was manifested in the
relations betw een tw o new historical tim es - national and universal - which
j resulted from an increase in the vertical depth o f historical time as it was both
! pushed further and further back into the past and brought increasingly up^>
j date. U nder the im petus o f the rivalry betw een France and Britain
dom inion in the M iddle East, m useum s, in clo se association with art\^ (
o lo g ica l excavations o f p rogressively deeper pasts, extended their
horizons beyond the m edieval period and the classical antiquities 0
and R om e to encom pass the remnants o f the Egyptian and Mesopo ne^
civilization s. At the sam e tim e, the recent past was historicized as^ - r 0*n
em erging nation-states sought to preserve and im mem oriahze
form ation as a part o f that process o f ‘n ationing’ their Р°Ри*а11° П^ е first1,1
essential to their further developm ent. It was as a consequence о ^оП\и-
these developm ents that the prospect o f a universal history o f civiU2 ^ 0f
opened up to thought and m aterialized in the archaeological со
the great nineteenth-century m useum s. The second developm ent
' a s > tb"1
led to these universal histories being annexed to national histo

76
 THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

a ch national m useum com p lex, co llectio n s o f national

hetoficS Presented as the outcom e and culm ination o f the universal
'h\erials Wer£ don's developm ent.
v 0f c ivil,za 0f natural or g eological sp ecim ens been organized
* J or had disp a^ rious preCursors o f nineteenth-century public m useum s.
orically in 1 e • rt o f the eighteenth century, principles o f scientific
ifiiroughoUt „ te stifie d to a m ixture o f theocratic, rationalist, and proto-
L.|assificati° n t6gms 0f thought. Translated into principles o f m u seological
ovoluti°nist was the table, not the series, with sp ecies being arranged
jispl*y- the Culturally codified sim ilarities/dissim ilarities in their external
jn te rm s ot c u ^ ^ ordered into tem porally organized relations o f
appearanceSurccession Thg cruciai ch allenges to such con ception s cam e from
precesston/su geology an<j biology, particularly where their researches
developmen^ ^ stratigraphical study o f fo ssil rem ains.7 However, the
overlappe developm ents need not concern us here. So far as their
deIallS (ions for museums were concerned, their main sign ifican ce was that
" flo w in g for organic life to be con ceived and represented as a tem porally
ordered succession o f different form s o f life where the transitions between
them were accounted for not as a result o f external shocks (as had been the
case in the eighteenth century) but as the con sequ en ce o f an inner momentum
inscribed within the concept o f life itself.8
If developments within history and archaeology thus allow ed for the
emergence of new forms o f classification and display through which the
stories of nations could be told and related to the longer story o f Western
civilization’s development, the discursive form ations o f nineteenth-century
geology and biology allow ed these cultural series to be inserted w ithin the
longer developmental series o f g eo lo g ica l and natural tim e. M useum s o f
science and technology, heirs to the rhetorics o f progress d eveloped in
national and international exhibitions, com pleted the evolutionary picture in
^presenting the history o f industry and m anufacture as a series o f progressive
novations leading up to the contem porary triumphs o f industrial capitalism ,
the e "t ttle Context late-nineteenth-century im perialism , it w as arguably
Pfove'd^nK^ITlent ° f a n th r o P o l ° g y within the exhibitionary com p lex which
rote 0f cu1tral to its id eological functioning. For it played the crucial
of other рПес1,п® histories of Western nations and civ iliza tio n s to those
'Hterrupted^o CS' bUt ° П^ se Parating the tw o in providing for an
Primitive pe ° П|1' 'П огс*ег o f p eop les and races - one in which
lw'light Zone ^ LS c,roPPe d out o f history altogether in order to occupy a
Ur,ier in the c e n t ^ 6!! natUre
anc* cu hure. This function had been fulfilled
4tl'ch seemed to ^ ^ rnuseo'° g icai display o f anatom ical peculiarities
y ° st Celebrated '° П Р°'У£епе1’с conceptions o f m ankind’s origins. The
devU|S'’ whose p r m WaS l^at Saartjie Baartman, the "Hottentot
e °Pment - occasl* ^u ttochs ~ interpreted as a sign o f separate
toned a flurry o f scientific speculation when she was
 HI SJORY AND THEORY
Figure 2.4 The cabinet of curiosities: Ferrante Imperato’s museum in Naples, 1599
Source : Im pey and M a cG re g o r (1985).
displayed in Paris and London. On her death in 1815, an autopsy revealed
alleged peculiarities in her gen italia w hich, likened to those o f the orang-utan,
were cited as proof p ositive o f the claim that black p eop les were the product
o f a separate - and, o f course, inferior, m ore prim itive, and bestial - line of
descent. N o less an authority than C uvier lent his support to this conception
in circulating a report o f Baartm an’s autopsy and presenting her genital
organs - ‘prepared in a way so as to allow one to see the nature o f the labia
(Cuvier, cited in Gilman 1985a: 2 1 4 -1 5 ) - to the French Academy which
arranged for their display in the M usee d'Ethnographie de Paris (now the
M usee de l ’hom m e).
D arw in’s rebuttal o f theories o f p o ly g en esis entailed that different mean-
be found for establishing and representing the fractured unity o f the huffl8®
sp ecies. By and large, this w as achieved by the representation of ‘prim111
p eo p les’ as instances o f arrested developm ent, as exam ples o f an earlier s ^
o f sp ecies developm ent w hich Western civ iliza tio n s had long ago surPasS,eS
Indeed, such p eop les were typically represented as the still-livin g exa ^ец
o f the earliest stage in human developm ent, the point o f transition be
nature and culture, betw een ape and man, the m issing link neceS.Sj any
account for the transition betw een animal and human history. Denl ^ oUi
history o f their ow n, it w as the fate o f ‘prim itive p eo p les’ to be dropP
THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X
o f human history in order that they m ight serve, repre-
as its support - underlining the rhetoric o f progress by serving
- js£ T -
s ^ ^ n t e r p o i n t s , representing the point at which human history em erges
as i(S c° Ure but has not yet properly begun its course.
froi*1 natUas the m useological display o f artefacts from such cultures was
^ d this resulted in their arrangem ent and display - as at the Pitt-
concerf , ’ m _ in accordance with the genetic or typological system which
;M u s e u m ___________ _______________
together all objects o f a sim ilar nature, irrespective o f their
groupec gr0Uping S) in an evolutionary series leading from the sim ple to
ethnograP ^ Keuren 19 3 9 ). H owever, it w as with regard to the display
ltl£ C° • n remains that the con sequ en ces o f these principles o f classification
° most dramatically m anifested. In eighteenth-century m useum s, such
vs had placed the accent on anatom ical peculiarities, view ed primarily
testimony to the rich diversity o f the chain o f universal being. By the
[ate nineteenth century, however, human rem ains were m ost typically
disp layed as parts o f evolutionary series with the rem ains o f still extant
odes being allocated the earliest p osition w ithin them. This was par­
ticularly true for the rem ains o f Australian A borigines. In the early years o f
A ustralian settlem ent, the c o lo n y ’s m useum s had d isplayed little or no
interest in Aboriginal rem ains (K ohlstedt 1983). The triumph o f evolutionary
theory transformed this situation, leading to a system atic rape o f A boriginal
sacred sites - by the representatives o f British, European, and A m erican as
well as Australian m useum s - for m aterials to provide a representational
foundation for the story o f evolution w ithin, tellin g ly enough, natural history
d isp la y s .9
The space of' representation constituted in the relations betw een the
disciplinary know ledges d eployed w ithin the exhibitionary co m p lex thus
permitted the construction o f a tem porally organized order o f things and
peoples. Moreover, that order w as a totalizin g on e, m eton ym ically en ­
compassing all things and all p eop les in their interactions through tim e. And
an order which organized the im plied public - the w hite citizen ries o f the
imperialist powers - into a unity, representationally effa cin g d ivision s within
,^rebf0dy Р0^1’с in constructing a ‘w e ’ con ceived as the realization, and
ип'Г ° r e ^ust beneficiaries, o f the p rocesses o f evolution and identified as a
not Ш°Рр05'1'оп t0 the prim itive otherness o f conquered p eop les. This was
of t h e nCW ^eter Stallybrass and A llon W hite note, the popular fairs
gr° tes e |ghteenth and early nineteenth centuries had ex o ticized the
rePrese 1гпа8егУ o f the carnival tradition by projecting it on to the
the const 1V6S aben cu ltures- In thus providing a norm alizing function via
served as UCt101) ob a radically different Other, the exhibition o f other peoples
^
l'°n ° f its**'Ve*1'°*e ^°r tbe ecbfication o f a national public and the confirm a-
^bsequenj'T^Cr'a* suPeriority’ (Stallybrass and W hite 1986: 4 2 ). If, in its
existing re eve'°P ment, the exhibitionary com plex latched on to this pre­
se n ta tio n a l space, what it added to it w as a historical dim ension.
 HISTORY AND THEORY

Figure 2.5 The Crystal Palace: stuffed animals and ethnographic figures
Source : Plate by Delamotte.

T H E E X H IB IT IO N A R Y A PPA R A T U SE S

The space o f representation constituted by the exhibitionary discipline

w hile conferring a degree o f unity on the exhibitionary complex, was
som ew hat differently occupied - and to different effect - by the instlt
com prising that com plex. If m useum s gave this space a s o l i d i t y and Pe ^
ence, this w as achieved at the price o f a lack o f ideological flexibility^^^ ^
m useum s instituted an order o f things that was meant to last. ^ e0|0gic>l
they provided the m odern state w ith a deep and continuous [edic
кплЬ/1глп but
backdrop u. one w hich, ^ 1 „., this role, ллмЫ
„и if it w as to play could not
not bee * J, js .A,
respond to shorter-term id eologica l requirem ents. Exhibitions lTie.je0iogiL;l*
injecting new life into the exhibitionary com plex and r e n d e r i n g l t s . c turaH'
configurations m ore p liable in bending them to serve th e c^ ^ф
specific h egem on ic strategies o f different national b o u r g e o i s t eS-

80

.
 THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X

runic, m obilizing it strategically in relation to the more

der of things с У" ^ poiitiCal exig en cies o f the particular m oment.
the 0rj iate ideolOS'Lt e ffect o f the secondary discourses which accom panied
'"rhis waS раГ11У пе from the state pageantry o f their opening and closin g
hibiti°ns- RanS‘ h n e w s p a p e r reports to the veritable sw arm ing o f ped-
e' renlonieS thrOUo rganized by religious, philanthropic and scientific associ-
C^ogic initiatlVeavantage o f the publics which exhibitions produced, these
nions to take a m d sp ecific connections betw een the exhibitionary
often f°r?ed Ve^ ess and the claim s to leadership o f particular social and
rhetoric of Progl^.he distinctive influence o f the exh ib itions them selves.
politic31 1огсе^ (ес1 jn their articulation o f the rhetoric o f progress to the
however, сОП^ опаи5 т and im perialism and in producing, via their control
rh e to ric s о ^ aoining p0 pUiar fairs, an expanded cultural sphere for the

° ' e[ vment'of the exhibitionary disciplines.

basic signifying currency o f the exh ib itions, o f course, con sisted in
T arrangement o f displays o f m anufacturing processes and products. Prior
'mhe Great Exhibition, the m essage o f progress had been carried by the
arrangement of exhibits in, as D avison puts it, ‘a series o f cla sses and sub-
lasses ascending from raw products o f nature, through various manufactured
,-oods and mechanical devices, to the “ h igh est” form s o f applied and fine
art' (Davison 1982/83: 8). A s such, the class articulations o f this rhetoric
were subject to som e variation. M echanics In stitu tes’ exh ib ition s placed
considerable stress on the centrality o f labour’s contributions to the processes
of production which, at tim es, allow ed a radical appropriation o f their
message. ‘The machinery o f wealth, here d isplayed ,’ the L e e d s T im es noted
in reporting an 1839 exhibition, ‘has been created by the m en o f hammers
and papercaps; more honourable than all the sceptres and coronets in the
"orld (cited in Kusamitsu 1980: 79). The Great Exhibition introduced two
с 3n8es which decisively influenced the future developm ent o f the form.
prod^1'' Stress was shifted from the p ro c e sse s to the p r o d u c ts o f
°ftheCtl°H d'.vested ор marks o f their m aking and ushered forth as signs
worldftb UCt'Ve and co‘ordinating pow er o f capital and the state. After 1851,
•he workin W e .r C *° tunct*on less as veh icles for the technical education o f
reified produc” dSSCS as lnstrum ents for their stupefaction before the
t0 the fpt;Cu ^ tlle’r 0wn labour, ‘p laces o f p ilgrim age’, as Benjam in put
Sec°nd, while У’ (BenJamin 1973: 165).
hased on sta ges^ f01 епВге'У abandoned, the earlier progressivist taxonom y
11 pr'nciples оГ Pr° duct'on was subordinated to the dom inating influence
Constructs of emDjC assification based on nations and the supra-national
]n(nat'onal courts or ra° eS' ^tnbodied, at the Crystal Palace, in the form
J t*1_at of separat 1Sp*a7 .areas’ this principle was subsequently developed
l^7° w'n8 an innovati PavBions tor ea ch participating country. M oreover,
•hese pavili0ns П ° Pt^e Centennial Exhibition held at Philadelphia in
were typically zoned into racial groups: the Latin.
 HISTORY AND THEORY
Teutonic, A n glo-S axon , A m erican, and Oriental being the
classification s, with black p eop les and the aboriginal рорцц)0^ РаЧ
quered territories, denied any space o f their ow n, being re'0^ °f с ’
subordinate adjuncts to the im perial displays o f the major powersreSente(k'
o f these developm ents w as to transfer the rhetoric o f prog res'
relations betw een stages o f production to the relations betw S ^0|11tL
nations by superim posing the associations o f the form er on to h a,)c
the context o f imperial displays, subject p eop les were thus re 6 *atter
lr,
occup yin g the low est lev els o f m anufacturing civilization p eS£nte(ia>
displays o f ‘p rim itive’ handicrafts and the like, they were re U°e(1 !tl
cultures without m om entum except for that b enignly bestowed on u6llte(1
without through the im proving m ission o f the im perialist powers
civ iliza tio n s were allotted an interm ediate p osition in being re ПеП1а!
either as having at one tim e been subject to developm ent but subse Йnted
e(lUenth
degenerating into stasis or as em bodying achievem ents o f civilizati
on which,
w hile developed by their ow n lights, were judged inferior to the
standards set
by Europe (Harris 1975). In brief, a p rogressivist taxonom y for the class
fication o f goods and m anufacturing p rocesses was laminated on to a crude!
racist teleo lo g ica l con ception o f the relations betw een peoples and races
which culm inated in the achievem ents o f the m etropolitan powers, invariable
m ost im pressively displayed in the p avilion s o f the host country.
E xhibitions thus located their preferred audiences at the very pinnacle o:
the exhibitionary order o f things they constructed. They also installed then
at the threshold o f greater things to com e. Here, too, the Great Exhibition led
the w ay in sponsoring a display o f architectural projects for the amelioration
o f w orking-class h ousing conditions. This principle was to be developed, in
subsequent exh ib itions, into displays o f elaborate projects for the improve­
m ent o f social conditions in the areas o f health, sanitation, education, and
w elfare - prom issory notes that the en gin es o f progress would be harnessed
for the general good. Indeed, exh ib itions cam e to function as promtssot)
notes in their totalities, em bodying, if just for a season, utopian principles^
social organization w hich, when the tim e cam e for the notes to be re(*e®.jj
would eventually be realized in perpetuity. A s world fairs fell increa ,ец
under the influence o f m odernism , the rhetoric o f progress tended, as^.sjng
puts it, to be ‘translated into a utopian statem ent about the future , ^ ltle future m m assoc’atl ° n with the exp osition , had a d ecisiv e bearing on
had reacn
the im m inent dissipation o f social tensions once progress
point where its benefits m ight be generalized (R ydell 1984: 4). , became
Iain Chambers has argued that w orking- and m iddle-class сц11ur^nlI11ercia|
sharply distinct in late nineteenth-century Britain as an ur ba n ^ijgio*
popular culture developed beyond the reach o f the moral eCOn° mia s P ablicly
and respectability. A s a con sequ en ce, he argues, ‘official cu'tur^ g univerS'l'f
lim ited to the rhetoric o f m onum ents in the centre o f town. 1 £ved f°r lj
the m useum , the theatre, the concert hall; otherw ise it was rese^
“p rivate” space o f the V ictorian resid en ce’ (Chambers 1985- 1 u tc display o f bodies, co lo n izin g the space o f earlier
82
THE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X
1 terms o f this argument, it does omit any consideration
' the gene,ra,;„ nl; jn providing official culture with pow erful bridge-
l1isf,tlUrole of ^ ’^ 'd ev elo p in g popular culture. M ost ob viously, the official
of' the
"Г into the neWl> “fpered‘a context for the deploym ent o f the exhibitionary exhibi '
I f e x h i b i 1i 0 n s ached, a m o r e extended public than that ordinarily reached
я more i
so fe
/0'rip|ineS Wh'Ch Teum system . The exchan ge o f both sta ff and exh ib its
llS the PubliC mUSand exhibitions was a regular and recurrent aspect o f their
■ een
betw
Щmuseums
i f mishing an ^minstitutional
suiuuuuo. axis for ...—
the extended so cia l deploym
---------------- r , ent
relations, т гш ]у new ensem ble o f disciplines. Even within the official zones
• tivelv new <
0fadistinC
,fad istin;‘7nc l the
~ exhibitionary d iscip lin es thus achieved an exposure to
0f exhibitmnj J ” ^ tQ w hich even the m ost com m ercialized form s o f
large as any to
pubhcS e c o u ld lay claim : 32 m illion p eop le attended the P ans
popular си и ^ ^ m illion went to C h ica g o ’s Colum bian E xposition
EXP° ST an d nearly 49 m illion to C h ica g o ’s 1933/4 Century o f Progress
jn 1893 an G]asgow Empire Exhibition o f 1938 attracted 12 m illion
E x p o s itio n ^ m illion attended the Empire Exhibition at W em bley in
'!p4°/5 '(MacKenzie 1984: 101). However, the id eological reach o f exhibi-
. " of(en extended significantly further as they established their influence
jver the popular entertainment zon es w hich, w hile in itially deplored by
e x h i b i t i o n authorities, were subsequently to be m anaged as planned adjuncts
to the official exhibition zones and, som etim es, incorporated into the latter,
it was through this network o f relations that the official public culture o f
museums reached into the developing urban popular culture, shaping and
directing its development in subjecting the id eo lo g ica l them atics o f popular
entertainments to the rhetoric o f progress.
The most critical developm ent in this respect con sisted in the extension o f
anthropology’s disciplinary ambit into the entertainm ent zon es, for it was
here that the crucial work o f transforming non-w hite p eop les them selves -
and not just their remains or artefacts - into object lesson s o f evolutionary
theory was accomplished. Paris led the w ay here in the colon ial city it
peoSt|rUCted .3S Part op ^ts 1889 E xposition. Populated by A sian and African
showpiece S'mu*ate^ nativ e ’ villa g es, the colon ial city functioned as the
tlle tentlTr^ ^rencb anthropology and, through its influence on delegates to
h'storiqug Н ек Г ^ Internat’ona*e d ’A nthropologic et d ’A rch eo lo g ie Pre-
'nternationafl e I ° P t^ d iscip lin e’s social deploym ent. W hile this was true
deti,iled d e m o n c /f 6^ S stU(!y op A m erican world fairs provides the m ost
transformjI!|'^tr,'t'0n tbe active role played by m useum anthropologists
the.
°ГУ byУ flrran
urnn '• C M idway J ~s ’nto llv li‘6g utiiiuiiaiiaiiuna
liv in dem onstrations uio f cvuiunuiiai
evolutionaryу
froi
r[) m the barbaric'?^ ”on_white p eop les into a ‘slid in g -sca le o f hum anity’,
а<Г°Г'с ° f Proor ° \ 6 пеаг'У civ iliz ed , thus underlining the exhibitionary
hlevem en ts , f e s s ЬУ serving as v isib le counterpoints to its triumphal
^ 'nvested in th ^ ^t!"6 ^ at re*at'ons op k now ledge and pow er continued
83
 HISTORY AND THEORY

freak and m onstrosity sh ow s in order to personify the truths o f a new

o f representation.
In their interrelations, then, the exp osition s and their fair zones со ' • i
an order o f things and o f peoples w hich, reaching back into the de ltN
prehistoric tim e as w ell as encom passing all corners o f the globe ^ S(|t
the w hole world m etonym ically present, subordinated to the dominat
o f the w hite, bourgeois, and (although this is another story) male eye ?e
metropolitan powers. But an eye o f pow er w hich, through the devel ° ^ e
o f the tech n ology o f visio n associated with ex p o sitio n towers авд^1" I
p ositions for seein g these produced in relation to the m iniature ideal cY ^ I
the exp osition s them selves, was dem ocratized in being made available to ^
Earlier attempts to estab lish a specular dom inance over the city had*1* I
course, been legion - the camera obscura, the panorama - and often fant'
in their techn ological im aginings. M oreover, the am bition to render the wh^ I
world, as represented in assem blages o f com m odities, subordinate to th* I
controlling vision o f the spectator was present in world exhibitions from the
outset. This w as represented sy n ecd o ch ica lly at the Great Exhibition b I
W y ld e’s Great G lobe, a brick rotunda w hich the visitor entered to see plaster I
casts o f the w orld ’s continents and oceans. The principles embodied in the I
E iffel Tower, built for the 1889 Paris E xposition and repeated in countless I
subsequent exp o sitio n s, brought these tw o series together, rendering the
project o f specular dom inance feasib le in affording an elevated vantage point
over a m icro-w orld w hich claim ed to be representative o f a larger totality.
Barthes has aptly sum m arized the effec ts o f the techn ology of vision
em bodied in the E iffel Tower. Rem arking that the tow er overcomes ‘the
habitual d ivorce betw een se ein g and b ein g se en ', Barthes argues that it |
acquires a distinctive pow er from its ability to circulate between these two
functions o f sight:

An object when w e look at it, it becom es a lookout in its turn when we

visit it, and now constitutes as an object, sim ultaneously extended and
collected beneath it, that Paris w hich just now w as looking at it.
(Barthes 1979: 4)

A sight itself, it becom es the site for a sight; a place both to see and be seen
from, w hich allow s the individual to circulate betw een the object and subjed
positions o f the dom inating vision it affords over the city and its inhabitants
(see Figure 2.6). In this, its distancing effect, Barthes argues, ‘the To*e
m akes the city into a kind o f nature; it constitutes the swarm ing of men
a landscape, it adds to the frequently grim urban myth a romantic dimensi°n’
a harmony, a m itigation’, offerin g ‘an im m ediate consum ption o f a hum -
made natural by that glance which transform s it into sp a ce’ (Barthes 1979-^
It is because o f the dom inating vision it affords, Barthes continues, that,
the visitor, ‘the Tower is the first obligatory monument; it is a Gateway-
marks the transition to a k n o w led g e’ (ibid.: 14). And to the power assoc

84
Figure 2.6 The Chicago Columbian Exposition, 1893: view from the roof of the
Source: Reid (1979).
totality. ,
HISTORY AND THEORY
with that know ledge: the pow er to order objects and persons 4
be known and to lay it out before a visio n capable o f encom"110 a ty.
In T he P relu d e, W ordsworth, seek ing a vantage point from
the tum ultuousness o f the city, invites his reader to ascend with 'Cl1 to
the press and danger o f the crow d/U pon som e showm an’s dI
B artholom ew ’s Fair, likened to m obs, riotings, and executions ° Г11' a>S
I------- . . 1 _ с
w hen tthe
l ,a r , 'i r p i n n i '
passions /o1 Гf tthe li/i /.it if ’n
c ity ’s populace break
forth into цпк°СсаЧ
pression. The vantage point, however, affords no control:
A ll m oveab les o f wonder, from all parts,
A ll here - A lb inos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
The Horse o f k now ledge, and the learned Pig,
The Stone-eater, the man that sw a llo w s fire,
Giants, V entriloquists, the In visib le Girl,
The Bust that speaks and m oves its gog g lin g eyes
The W ax-work, C lock-w ork, all the m arvellous craft
O f m odern M erlins, W ild B easts, Puppet-shows,
A ll o u t-o ’-the-w ay, far-fetched, perverted things,
A ll freaks o f nature, all Prom ethean thoughts
o f man, his dullness, m adness, and their feats
A ll jum bled up together, to com pose
A Parliament o f M onsters.
(VII, 6 8 4 - 5 ; 7 0 6 - 1 8 )
Stallybrass and W hite argue that this W ordsworthian perspective was
typical o f the early nineteenth-century tendency for the educated public, in
withdraw ing from participation in popular fairs, also to distance itself from
and seek som e id eological control over, the fair by the literary production of
elevated vantage points from w hich it m ight be observed. By the end of the
century, the im aginary dom inance over the city afforded by the showmans
platform had been transformed into a cast-iron reality while the fair, no longff
a sym bol o f chaos, had becom e the ultimate spectacle o f an ordered tota''n
And the substitution o f observation for participation was a possibility о ^
to all. The principle o f sp ectacle - that, as Foucault summarizes
rendering a sm all number o f ob jects a ccessib le to the inspects ц ’ 31 ° nce material and sym bolic, o f the pow er to punish.
m ultitude o f men - did not fall into abeyance in the nineteenth ce
was surpassed through the developm ent o f techn ologies of visto
rendered the multitude accessib le to its ow n inspection.
C O N C L U S IO N
I have sought, in this chapter, to tread a delicate line b e t w e e n ^ ° ^ aCe the'|
G ram sci’s p erspectives on the state, but without a tte m p tin g 10 с 0!цр^
d ifferen ces so as to forge a synthesis betw een them. Nor is there
86
Passin
'^Id
it
r .df°f
nce°
hor*a
I
II Sy”
T HE E X H I B I T I O N A R Y C O M P L E X
hesis The concept o f the state is m erely a convenient
sUch arrayi o f governm ental a g en cies which - as Gramsci was
,'’nd for aan a^ Tlie jn'distinguishing betw een the co erciv e apparatuses
1 ^ 1to a r g U C g a g e d * in^the organization
first - o f^ consent- - need1 not*1_
date and th° Se.m h ree ard to either their functioning or the m odalities
ofth^ ed as u n i t a D w lln *
be
'^bo?
^ w e r ‘hey eITlb° ery my argument has been m ainly with (but not against)
TT,at said- already referred to. Pearson distingu ish es between the
O C Q j.'
unbndie; Fuuc*ult' In thesS0ft' approaches to the nineteenth-century sta te’s role in the
et. hard' and the s o ^ cu|ture_ The former con sisted o f ’a system atic body o f
rromoti°n ot adrt^ nls promulgated in a system atic way to specified audi-
kn0wledge an as com prised by those institutions o f sch o o lin g which
ences'- Its f^rcible h o ld or som e m easure o f constraint over their m embers
exercr‘Sed a -h°the te c h n o lo g ie s o f self-m onitoring developed in the carceral
and ю o u b t e d l y . migrated. The ‘^oft’ approach, by contrast, worked ‘by
systemeU“a“ her than by pedagogy; by entertainm ent rather than by disciplined
eXan1fin and by su b tle ty and encouragem ent’ (Pearson 1982: 35). Its field
of application c o n siste d o f those institutions w hose hold over their publics
depended on their voluntary participation.
There seems no reason to deny the different sets o f k now ledge/pow er
r e l a t i o n s embodied in these contrasting approaches, or to seek their recon cili­
ation in some common principle. For the needs to w hich they responded were
different. The problem to which the ‘sw arm ing o f disciplinary m echan ism s’
responded was that o f m aking extended populations governable. However,
the development o f bourgeois dem ocratic p o lities required not m erely that
the populace be governable but that it assent to its governan ce, thereby
creating a need to enlist active popular support for the values and objectives
enshrined in the state. Foucault know s w ell enough the sym b olic pow er o f
the penitentiary:
he high wall, no longer the w all that surrounds and protects, no longer
waIIWa" t*13t Stands ^or Pow er ar>d wealth, but the m eticulously sealed
work ofCr° SSa^'e 'П eb ^er direction, clo sed in upon the now m ysterious
VPr, ° Punishment, w ill b ecom e, near at hand, som etim es even at the
vСГV p P n trn л .
hgure cities o f the nineteenth century, the m onotonous
(Foucault 1977: 1 16)
as embodirnent ''h' typ'ca **y located at the centre o f cities where they stood
which, jn be jnS' mater'al and sym bolic, o f a power to ‘show and t e ll’
j’Ought rhetorical C^ 0yed 'n a n ew ly constituted open and public space,
' the Museum and 'h 'ncorPorate ^ e people w ithin the p rocesses o f the state.
t()ere Was none the |'> 6 реп'1егП'агУ thus represented the Janus face o f power.
em- For'hose wh(? b n aHl,LlaSt, Symb0llCally - an econ om y o f effort betw een
fa ° J''cc*t0 adopt the tutelary relation to the se lf promoted
87
 HISTORY AND THEORY

by popular sch oolin g or w hose hearts and m inds failed to be w

p ed agogic relations betw een state and people sym bolized bv th ° lhe 3
--------------------- „ - t h e 0pend
o f the m useum , the closed w alls o f the penitentiary threat
4
instruction in the lesson s o f power. W here instruction arm ste4
punishm ent began. rhetoric
%
THE P O L I T I C A L
R A T I O N A L I T Y OF
THE M U S E U M

•The Museum in the D isciplinary S o ciety ', E ilean Hooper-

In her essay ^ ^ ^ ruptures o f the French R evolution ‘created the
Greenhlll aortg em ergence for a new “ truth”, a new rationality, out o f which
cond'IlonSwOfunctionality ^ new insthution> the public m useum ' (Hooper-
came ® 19g9; 63) Es,ablished as a m eans o f sharing what had previously
GreeI11rivatc, of exposing what had been con cealed , the public m useum
^exposed both the decadence and tyranny o f the old form s o f control, the
ancien regime, and the dem ocracy and utility o f the new, the R ep u b lic’ (ibid.:
68) Appropriating royal, aristocratic and church co llectio n s in the name o f
the people, destroying those item s w hose royal or feudal associations
threatened the Republic with contagion and arranging for the display o f the
remainder in accordance with rationalist principles o f classification , the
Revolution transformed the m useum from a sym bol o f arbitrary pow er into
an instrument-which, through the education o f its citizen s, w as to serve the
collective good of the state.
let, and from the very beginning, H ooper-G reenhill argues, (H ooper-
Greenhill 1989) the public m useum was shaped into being as an apparatus
with two deeply contradictory functions: 'that o f the elite tem ple o f the arts.
1^а1 °* a utilitarian instrument for dem ocratic education' (Hooper-
C o 1" 63). To which, she contends, there was later added a third
societ Пtu museum was shaped into an instrument o f the disciplinary
consume r° U®F tFe tnstttution o f a d ivision betw een the producers and
m 1^е relafio ^now'ec^Se - a d ivision which assum ed an architectural form
Was Produced FetWeen hidden spaces o f the m useum , where know ledge
t-nowledgy Was UnC' or§ an'zed in cam era, and its public sp aces, where
4tlere bodies1S ° 6reC* ^0Г Pass*ve consum ption - the m useum becam e a site
ln taking m y °nstan% under surveillance, were to be rendered docile.
^ °tferan accounfo'11^8 ^Г° т tFese remarks, my purpose in what fo llo w s is
as Politica| ratio - г ^ museurn w hich can serve to illum inate
^txlem forms of ga0Uy’ d tCrm ^ borrow from Foucault. The developm ent o f
* ,echno'ogies Г Г 1' F° Ucault ar8 u es- is traced in the em ergence o f
lc aim at regulating the conduct o f individuals and

89
 HISTORY AND THEORY O LITICAE R A T I O N A L I T Y OF THE M USEUM
THE
populations - the prison, the hospital and the asylum , for ________ v ons Sim ilarly, dem ands based on the principle o f
e xampie
Foucault contends, these tech n ologies are characterized by the' As „dating p0pU „„су are produced and sustained by the fact that, in
rationalities: they constitute distinct and specific m odalities ,lr 0Nvn Spe ^ еГ *п.а»опа1„а1fhe\ тsгtoУry o rf м
, senm“ Man,
а й , the space o f representation shaped into
>
o f power, generating their ow n sp ecific fields o f political ^ ^ e*erc' Coding t0 V n wwith the form ation o f the public m useum em bodies a
ciation ith
relations, rather than com prising instances for the exercise of РГ° Ь1гems lUfp1
P1 «к шin asso1 I human universality in relation to w hich, w hether on the
o f power. There is, Foucault further su ggests, frequently a mi 1gene: ^ ‘Hgjpfe of genera d racial> c iass or other social patterns o f its exclu sion s
•ral4
the rhetorics w hich seem in gly govern the aim s o f such te c h n o T '^ Ье% pr"L of the gendefe ’ useum d isp iay can be held to be inadequate and
political rationalities em bodied in the actual m odes o f their°8'eS an4 and fr* с япУ ра*11^и
,nd b'aS n; ed of supplem entation.
W here this is so, the space produced by this m ism atch supplietth e UnCti°niri£ lherefore m discourse o f reform is insatiable, however, is not to argue
for a discourse o f reform w hich proves unending because it e C° nditi0ns To argue that demands that have been, still are and, for the foreseeable
nature o f its object. The prison, Foucault thus argues, has been8'3^ tlle against the p0 tinue ^ bg brought to bear on m useum s. To the contrary, in
subject to calls for reform to allow it to liv e up to its rehabilitativeendleSSli future, wi11 С0£П cts in which these dem ands grow out o f the m useum 's
Yet, h ow ever in effective such reform s prove, the viability of t l^ Thet0ric- arguing the re P ^ j rationaiity, m y purpose is to suggest w ays in which
rarely put into question. W hy? B eca u se, Foucault argues prison j$ contradict0^ P eum p olkics might be more productively pursued if posed
rationality o f the prison lie s elsew here - le ss in its ability to genuinelPOllt'Cai Actions V*
questions . • . 1 1• ^ ♦1-.
cultural dynam ics and relations peculiar to the museum
behaviour than in its capacity to separate a m anageable c rim in a l su^ in the light of thosetake account o f and negotiate. In this respect, apart from
from the rest o f the population. which they must
k a to his work for m ethodological guidance, I shall draw on Foucault
The m useum too, o f course, has been constantly subject to dem ands fo 'ohtically in suggesting that a consideration o f the ‘p olitics o f truth - peculiar
reform . M oreover, although its sp ecific inflections have varied with time and ю the museum allows the developm ent o f more focu sed form s o f p olitics than
place as have the sp ecific p olitical con stitu en cies w hich have been caught might flow from other perspectives.
up in its advocacy, the discourse o f reform w hich motivate these demands Let me mention one such alternative here. For the birth o f the museum
has rem ained identifiably the sam e over the last century. It is, in the main could certainly be approached, from a Gram scian p erspective, as form ing a
characterized by tw o principles: first the principle o f public rights sustaining part of a new set o f relations betw een state and p eop le that is best understood
the dem and that m useum s should be eq u ally open and accessible to all; and as pedagogic in the sense defined by Gram sci w hen he argued the state ‘m ust
secon d, the principle o f representational adequacy sustaining the demand be conceived of as an “ educator”, in as much as it tends p recisely to create
that m useum s should adequately represent the cultures and values of a new type or level o f civ ilisa tio n ’ (Gram sci 1971: 2 4 7 ). N or w ould such an
d ifferent section s o f the public. W hile it m ight be tempting to see these as account be implausible. Indeed, a Gram scian p erspective is essen tial to an
alien dem ands im posed on m useum s by their external political e n v iro n m e n ts . adequate theorization o f the m useum ’s relations to b ourgeois-dem ocratic
I shall su ggest that they are ones w hich flow out o f, are generated by and 'olities. In allowing an appreciation o f the respects in which the m useum
only m ake sense in relation to the internal dynam ics o f the museum form involved a rhetorical incorporation o f the people w ithin the p rocesses o f
Or, more exactly, I shall argue that they are fuelled by the mismatch between, опГ^' н Serves ~ *n ways I shall outline - as a useful antidote to the
on the one hand, the rhetorics which govern the stated aims of museums^ejr Fouca^l ' ^°CUS which results if m useum s are v iew ed , so le ly through a
on the other, the political rationality em bodied in the actual modes of ^ 'he stick'311 ^ 'nstruments op discipline. However, I want, here, to bend
functioning - a m ism atch w hich guarantees that the demands it g e n e r a t e s generaljy"1, ^ 6 ° t*ler direction. For on ce, as in the Gram scian paradigm they
insatiable. j jS hegemony th mUSeums are represented as instrum ents o f ru lin g-class
Thus, to briefly anticipate my argum ent, the public rights ^ form of сиЦц1аГ mUseums tend t0 thought o f as am enable to a general
produced and sustained by the d issonance betw een, on the one 'de°l0gica| аг(Га _ one w hich, in criticizin g those h egem on ic
• • m S 3S Vv*,,v
dem ocratic rhetoric governing the con ception o f public museum ^ .^ [ги. 10 Forge new aC,U at*ons governing the them atics o f m useum displays, seeks
for popular education and, on the other, their actual functioning^, that they difficulty _ _ Ulati0ns caPahle o f organizing a counter-hegem ony. The
m ents for the reform o f public manners. W hile the former requ ^ equab' distinJ lth such
"st'nctiVe deiH torm ulations is that they take scant account o f the
' for nstjt||.* eld o f • a
should address an undifferentiated public made up o t free a id f (. lutional pron political relations constituted by the m u seu m ’s specific
techno log'eS uPr
the latter, in givin g rise to the d evelopm ent o f various pop1 „(,Па1,У indiffPr ertles- Gramsci :ian p o litics, in other w ords, are institu-
regulating or screening out the form s o f behaviour a s s o c i a t e d ^ ^ g jiis ,o1 'uper andj nt in
fiualify Ways w hich a Foucaultian p erspective can u sefully
assem b lies, has m eant that they have functioned as a p o w e

90 91
 HISTORY AND THEORY
T H E B IR T H O F T H E M U S E U M
Let m e now turn, in the light o f these considerations, to the
0n gi‘n s andf
history o f the public m useum , an institution w hose distinguishtn "Ue5r|
;har;
istics crystallized during the first h alf o f the nineteenth centu ' S °*lai
doi
I shall foreground three principles w hich highlight the distin
‘м » с . Ц ^lnSsd
public m useum with respect to, first, its relations to the publics^"^Ss °f tl^
organize and con stitute, secon d, its internal organization а н ■pnbl: ; ^ .
and, thi 11
placem ent in relation both to kindred institutions as w ell as to th " 4
ancient and m odern - to which it m ight m ost u sefully be juxtan 6'
D ouglas C rim p’s account o f the birth o f the modern art museu ■ art but
instructive route into the first set o f questions (Crimp 1987) Crirn
the A ltes M useum in Berlin as the paradigmatic instance of the ^
m useum , seein g in it the first institutional expression o f the m o d ern ^ 8,1
art w hose initial form ulation he attributes to H egel. C onstructed^^301
A ugust Schinkel, a clo se friend o f H e g e l’s, over the period 1823 to lStq ^
H egel delivered his lectures on aesthetics at the University of Berlin th
conception o f the A ltes M u seum ’s function, Crimp argues, was governed!)
H e g e l’s philosophy o f art in which art, having ceded its place to philosophi
as the suprem e m ode o f our k now ledge o f the A bsolute, becomes a mere
object o f p hilosoph ical contem plation. The space o f the museum, as this
analysis unfolds, thus becom es one in w hich art, in being abstracted from real
life con texts, is d ep oliticized . The m useum , in sum, constitutes a specific
form o f art’s enclosure w hich, in C rim p’s postm odernist perspective, art must
break with in order to becom e on ce more so cia lly and politically relevant.
The argument is hardly new. The stress Crimp places on the Hegelian
lin eage o f the art m useum is rem iniscent o f A d orn o’s conception of museums
as Tike fam ily sepulchres o f works o f art’ (Adorno 1967: 175), while his
postm odernist credo ech oes to the tune o f M alraux’s ‘museum w i t h o u t walls
(Malraux 1967). Yet w hile it m ay make good sense, as part of a politic
p olem ic, to view art m useum s as institutions o f enclosure from the Point^
view o f the p ossib le alternative contexts in w hich works of art mtg^ |
exh ib ited , Crimp is led astray w hen he proposes ‘an a r c h a e o o g y ^
m useum on the m odel o f F oucault’s analysis o f the asylum, the c'ialC.onand
prison’ on the grounds that, like these, it is ‘equally a space of ef ° , ^ С1)ЦЮ
con finem ent’ (Crimp 1987: 62). Quite apart from the fact that it
see in what sense works o f art, once placed in an art museum , might iecti°n
to the inmate o f the penitentiary w hose confinem ent results in s J ^rjmf ’
o f behaviour-
a norm alizing scrutiny directed at the m odification
ded by
thesis w ould require that the con text for art’s display provt L/ided ЬУ ,i*
m useum be regarded as more en clo sed than the contexts P'° ^ er va|u^
variety o f institutions w ithin w hich works o f art, together
objects, had been housed from the R enaissance through to ^ w0rks
This is patently not so. W hile such co llectio n s (whether
92
po litical r a t io n a l it y of the m u se u m
th e e
o f scientific interest) had gone under a variety o f
or objects
stu d io li, ca b in ets d es c u r ie u x , W u n d erka m m ern , K u n st-
.„riosi'ieS
cUr'eS (museun^ ’fi|jecj a variety o f functions (dem onstrations o f royal power,
% ^ ) and oCratic or m ercantile status, instruments o f learning), they all
‘" > ofanSt° n y enclosed spaces to w hich a ccess was remarkably re-
L . .
the m ost extrem e cases, Oa Pccess
4-U^ m o r l d v t r f i m p OQCPC
w as available to
P P C C U/QC Ck \/Q 11 Я Vi 1f*
> Т ч 0 much so that, in
tricted- S° rnUL.*rhe prince. A s w e trace, over the course o f the late eighteenth
bnlyone Pe? ° " eentj1 centuries, the dispersal o f these co llectio n s and their
md early "‘"„'о public m useum s, w e trace a process in w hich not just works
stitution in 1
recdnstitutl°j"ectjons 0f aii kinds com e to be placed in contexts which were
enclosed than their antecedents. The clo sed w alls o f
3,1 considerably less
other words, should not blind us to the fact that they pro­
nuseums, m
o p e n e d their doors to permit free a ccess to the population at large,
nressively
of these developm ents varied: what w as accom plished in France,
The timing^ дга т а нса11у, jn the course o f the R evolution was, elsew here,
Vl°re typically the product o f a history o f gradual and piecem eal reform s.
N e v er th ele ss, by roughly the m id-nineteenth century, the principles o f the
new form were everywhere apparent: everyon e, at least in theory, was
welcome. David Blackbourn and G e o ff Eley. in tracing these developm ents
in the German context, thus stress the respects in w hich the advocacy o f
museums - along with that o f adjacent institutions em bodying sim ilar
principles, such as public parks and zoos - was prem ised on a bourgeois
critique of earlier absolutist form s o f display, such as the royal m enagerie.
In doing so, they counterpose its form ative principle - that o f addressing ‘a
general public made up o f form al equals' - to the form ally differentiated
torms of soeiability and edification that had characterized the a n cien reg im e
iBlackbourn and Eley 1984: 198).
In these respects, then, and contrary to Crimp's su ggestion , the trajectory
thero^h *П museum s developm ent is the reverse o f that em bodied in
Whereas 1усотетрогагУ em ergence o f the prison, the asylum and the clinic.
'ndiaenund656!! 6^ eCted se4 uestration and institutional enclosure o f
mestablish °* ^ popu^ap ons’ w hich had previously m ixed and interm ingled
scene ofpUp1jleu'tS w *10se boundaries proved relatively perm eable or, as in the
Jr:imaturgies t l ^ ^ ° Г^ S^ ps f ° ° l s ’ had form ed parts o f elaborate public
Cea,edfrom pubp mUSeUm p'ace(f objects w hich had previously been con-
tliL‘ carceral instim J 16W '1У ° new open and public contexts. M oreover, unlike
"s c o n c e n u ^ 0"8 whose birth coincided with its ow n, the m useum - in
ptl°n if not
. ,Se4uest
,',ucslration nf „ ", Ш a11 aspects o f its practice - aim ed not at the
f f Publics - e|" ]eP o p u lati° n s bm
but, precisely, at the m ixing and interm ingling
Popular - w hich had hitherto tended towards separate
e Points not
radicanS 'n which thp n0l m ere|y to score o f f Crimp but rather to stress the
a4v h;.,.-
'y dist ine PUb m m „ c « .— ______ ■ ,
m et from tha-1'0 m useum o ccu pied a cultural space that was
occupied by its various predecessors just as it
93
 HISTORY AND THEORY

was distinct in its function. This, in turn, serves to u n d e r s

logical lim itation o f those accounts w hich tell the story a ^eth
developm ent in the form o f a linear history o f its e m e r g e n t/^ mUseu
collectin g institutions. For it is by no m eans clear that these ^ ,Г° т еагГ
appropriate historical co-ordinates for theorizing the m u s e u m ^ 6 tlle,n
ness as a veh icle for the display o f power. D epending on the 1 S distinctiv°S‘
country, m any candidates m ight be suggested for this role - t h e ^ and the
the court m asque, the tournament, the b a lle t de co u r and 0f Г° УЭ1 en,ry
various precursors o f the public m useum itself. However, whi]e C° Urse' tl*
R enaissance period, m any o f these had form ed veh icles for the"1 earl!
royal pow er to the populace, they ceased to have this fun ction ^ 131^
sixteenth century as, w ith the em ergence o f absolutism and the”1- fr°m tlle
refeudalization o f courtly society, they cam e to function mainl aSS°C‘a,e(i
festivals or institutions designed to display monarchical power aj\C0Un
lim ited circles o f the aristocracy.
So far as the public display o f pow er to the general population
con cern ed , this in creasingly took the form , esp ecia lly in the eightee'^
century, o f the public enactm ent o f the scene o f punishment. Yet iTflt
m useum took over this function, it also transformed it in embodying a ne«
rhetoric o f pow er w hich enlisted the general public it addressed as its subject
rather than its object. The logic o f this transformation is best seen in the
respects in w hich the developm ent o f the m useum and the prison criss-cross
one another in the early nineteenth century - but as histories running in
opposing rather than, as Crimp su g g ests, parallel directions. Thus, if in the
eighteenth century the prison is a relatively perm eable institution effecting
an incom plete enclosure o f its inhabitants, its nineteenth-century development
takes the form o f its increasing separation from society as punishment -nou
severed from the function o f m aking pow er publicly manifest - is secreted
w ithin the closed w alls o f the penitentiary. The course o f the museum s
developm ent, by contrast, is one o f its increasing permeability as the varie у
o f restrictions placed on access (w hen granted at all) - people with c^e^
shoes, those w ho cam e by carriage, persons able to present their ere
for inspection - are rem oved to produce, by the mid-nineteenth centur ’
institution w hich had m igrated from a variety o f private and exclusive
into the public domain. underi*ne*|
The place o f the tw o institutions in the history o f architecture
this inverse sym m etry o f their respective trajectories. Robin ^ ne'1
how, w hile there was no distinctive prison architecture before ^
century w itnessed a flurry o f architectural initiatives oriente c0uld ^
duction o f the prison as an en closed space within which be^aV uS on ^
constantly monitored; an architecture that was causal in its rjsonra^ /
organization o f pow er relations w ithin the interior space of the
than em blem atic in the sense o f being concerned with the
-.lv innoVat|Ve
pow er (Evans 1982). M useum architecture was c o m p a r a b l y

94
 f p o li ti c a l r a t i o n a l i t y o f th e m useum

w itnessing a spate o f architectural com petitions for the

,anie р е * * в * which the em phasis m oved progressively away from
f i e n of mUSe"'” d spaces o f display for the private pleasure o f the prince,
Je^ni*inS еПС!нЫаг and towards an organization o f space and vision that
l,fgmcrat ° r ° to function as instrum ents o f public instruction
i&' н allow museums
vVO^ сЛ\
Seling 196 , assing one another like ships in the night, are the m useum
Sor. in thU!> P, oblivious o f the fact. When M illbank Penitentiary opened
in(jihePenltcnt^a testooned with chains, whips and instruments o f torture
in I817- ar; 0as a m useum. The sam e period w itnessed an addition to
wa s seI a M C 0 f exhibitionary institutions w hen, in 1835, Madame Tussaud
London’5 arraygnt shop featuring, as a major attraction, the Chamber o f
set up Pe r™re (he barbarous ex c esses o f past practices o f punishm ent were
Horrors ^ thejr gory detail. A s the century developed, the dungeons o f
dlSplaye, . were o p e n e d .to public inspection, often as the centrepieces o f
°|d cas 5rief, although often little remarked, the exh ib ition o f past
USmes of p u n ish m en t becam e, and rem ains, a major m useological trope.1
While the functioning o f such exhibitions in relation to W higgish accounts
of the history o f penality is clear, this trope has also served as a means
whereby the m useum , in instituting a public critique o f the form s for the
display of pow er associated with the a n cien re g im e, has sim ultaneously
declared its own democratic status. Thus, if the m useum supplanted the scene
of punishment in ta k in g on the function o f d isplaying pow er to the populace,
the rhetorical econom y o f the pow er that was displayed w as significantly
altered. Rather th an em bodying an alien and coercive principle o f power
"hich aimed to eow the people into subm ission, the m useum - addressing
the people as a public, as citizens - aim ed to in v eig le the general populace
no complicity w ith power by placing them on this side o f a pow er which it
represented to it as its own.

AN O R D E R O F T H I N G S A N D P E O P L E S

cultural p ro 'e/U)WeVer’ merely a matter ° f !he state claim ing ow nership o f

11 was an e ffe c t f ” 1^е Public or o f the m useum opening its doors.
"lem of objects ° ' it nCW orSanizat‘onal principles governing the arrange-
hmduced for th. 7 'n museum displays and o f the subject position these
c°nsiituted an d a d d ^ Pu^ ' c op Pree ancl form al equals w hich m useum s
Princely collectionsrC|SSetl ,П ^ ° ° P er'® reen h iirs account, the function o f
oJHiature around th Unn^ R enaissance w as ‘to recreate the world in
B; / ' he world symbo|Cen![al d®Ure ot Prince w ho thus claim ed dom inion
Ren6 the interpret'03 ^ he d ‘d ‘П геаИ1У’ (H ooper-G reenhill 1989: 64).
hid,je1Ssance epistem e atl^e '°g ic ° f what Foucault has characterized as the
connections ofW *C, r6ad beneath the surface o f things to discover
meaning and sign ifican ce, such co llectio n s were
 H ISTO R Y AND T H EO R Y

‘organised to dem onstrate the ancient hierarchies o f the

resem blances that drew the things o f the world together’ (ibjq ^ and
course o f the eighteenth century, the force o f the Renais'.'^ '* ^ 8Тц!д
w eakened under the w eight of, again in F oucault’s terms' q ^ 1*06 ePhi
classification governing the cla ssica l e p is te m e , museum di 6 РГ'Пс'Р1е^'
Ь СТГ»\/Р ГП Н in
р
be governed р
in Яaccordance
Г Г Л г Н я П Р Р \ x / it b
with Qa Пnew Р И / n m it r n r n ^ „
programme. Govern ^ н^ y sS OCr.anie ® f _
principles o f scientific taxonom y, the stress was placed on °i by ^ tlle n!*
л:?? — и, .». ____ . u : _______ *1___ . u - . 1-1 i lhe nKr,
d ifferen ces betw een things rather than their hidden resemblances^ °*3S*rVabl"t
n
orr nordinary
r r lin a r v object,
n h ie n t accorded
arrn rrlp H a я representative
rp n r p c p n ta tiv p function, was ac ^beCon,-
0|N )|f
over the exotic or unusual; and things were arranged as parts о / ^ Pr'0rU\
than as unique item s. Series rathe.
It is odd, however, that H ooper-G reenhill should leave o ff her
this point. For the ep istem ic shift that m ost matters so far is ^ C°Unt s:
m useum is concerned is not that from the R enaissance to the 6
e p iste m e but that from the latter to the modern epistem e. As a cc^ C'ass'Cal
o f this shift, as Foucault describes it in tracing the emergence of the
scien ces o f Man, things ceased to be arranged as parts o f taxonomic'taM*
and cam e, instead, in being inserted within the flow o f time, to be diffn
entiated in terms o f the positions accorded them within evolutionary series
It is this shift, I suggest, which can best account for the discursive space of
the public m useum . The birth o f the m useum is coincident with, and supplied
a primary institutional condition for, the em ergence o f a new set of kno»-
ledges - geology, biology, archaeology, anthropology, history and art history
- each o f w hich, in its m useological deploym ent, arranged objects as parts
o f evolutionary sequences (the history o f the earth, o f life, of man, and of
civilization ) w hich, in their interrelations, form ed a totalizing order of things
and p eop les that w as historicized through and through.
The conceptual shifts which made this p ossib le did not, of course, occur
evenly or at the sam e tim e across all these k now ledges. In the case of history
and art history, Stephen Bann (1 9 8 4 ) attributes the development of the two
principles governing the p oetics o f the m odern history museum - the ga
p ro g re ssiv a and the period room - to the M usee des m o n u m e n t s
(1 7 9 5 ) and A lexandre du Som m erard’s co llectio n at the Hotel d e U J l
(1 8 3 2 ), although Pevsner (197 6 ) traces elem ents o f the f o r m e r to ^
von M ich el’s display at the D u sseld orf gallery in 1755. In ^ e(j
anthropology, w hile Jomard, curator at the Bibliotheque Royale ’
as early as the 1820s, for an ethnographic m useum that would t u
degree o f civilisation o f p eop les/w h o are/but slightly advanc j0gic»
W illiam s 1985: 140), it was not until Pitt R ivers developed h‘s evised.S‘,:
system that display principles appropriate to this objective were ^ wideb
was it until towards the end o f the century that these Pr'nc'^*eSgn1ithson'^1
d iffu sed , largely due to the influence o f Otis Mason of the ^^ tfl1*8* j
Sim ilarly, the theoretical triumph o f D arw inism had little C. r ’S
practices in Britain until Richard O w en, a defender o f Cuvi

96
 f PO LIT IC A L R A T I O N A L I T Y OF THE M U S E U M

was succeeded, towards the end o f the century, by

jty of sPeCl6Sgr 2
lhi: * * , > ПГУ F' ° c a v e a t s are entered, however, the artefacts - such as
"'"lien al1 theSC ns w o rk s o f art, cu riosities and anatom ical remains -
V ical SpeCdneplayed c h e e k by jow l in the m useum 's early precursors in
geh°chhad bee" h diversity o f the chain o f universal being, or which had
' ' ! > y totH heru to n a table in accordance with the principles o f classi-
• > e n la , ° Ur0Ughly the m id-nineteenth century, been wrenched from
„'■ation- had- b>^ ^ representation and were in the process o f being ushered
both these spaCL,Sconstjtuted by the relations betw een the evolutionary series
in , о the new °"®ch o f (hese k now ledges. In these respects, and like their
organized b> ^ useums prociuced a position o f power and know ledge in
predecessors’m.crocosinic reconstruction o f a totalized order o f things and
re|ation ^ and as a gen u inely new principle, these p o w er-k n o w led g e
pe°P.les' g democratic in their structure to the degree that they constituted

relaII°blic they addressed - the new ly form ed, undifferentiated public brought
thep“eing by the m useum ’s openness - as both the culm ination o f the
volutionary "series laid out before it and as the apex o f developm ent from
which the direction o f those series, leading to modern man as their a ccom ­
plishment, was discernible. Just as, in the festivals o f the absolutist court, an
ideal and ordered world unfolds before and em anates from the privileged and
controlling perspective o f the prince, so, in the m useum , an ideal and ordered
world unfolds before and em anates from a controlling p osition o f know ledge
and vision; one, however, w hich has been dem ocratized in that, at least in
principle, occupancy of that position - the position o f Man - is openly and
freely available to all.
It is, however, around that phrase ‘at least in p rin cip le’ that the key issues
he. For in practice, o f course, the space o f representation shaped into being
b> the public museum was hijacked by all sorts o f particular social ideologies:
ofthe SeX'Sl '.ПtFe §en<^ered patterns o f its exclu sion s, racist in its assignation
human^01^ ' 03* P°Pu*at'ons op conquered territories to the low est rungs o f
toboureV° ’Ut'° n’ 3nC* bour§eois *n the respect that it was clearly articulated
Pt-'oples^that rllet° rics o f Pro8 ress. For all that, it was an order o f things and
Parporting^o^0,11^ °Penec* UP t0 criticism front within inasm uch as, in
ln elation to° 'h' St° ry ^ an- P incorporated a principle o f generality
lnc°mplete in-кь*1 ^ part'cular museum display could be held to be partial,
'Paces of reprcs^Uate ^ ben con ti'asted with earlier absolutist or theocratic
;<>n'rolling p0 j^jen,tat'° n ~ spaces constructed in relation to a singular
^“Pfesentative gen° ^e *erence- human or d ivin e, which d o es not claim a
JSeum rests on а Га '1у. ~ tbe sPace o f representation associated with the
ехс; геп11уу° ,аи1е princ*P^e ° f general human universality w hich renders it
HtttUdc(lconRtitUcj °PeninS it up to a constant discourse o f reform as hitherto
ICS Seek inclusion - and inclusion on equal terms - within

97
 HISTORY AND THEORY
I shall return to these considerations later. M eanw hile, let m e return to
question o f the relations betw een the prison and the museum in order
clarify their respective positions w ithin the p ow er-k n o w led g e relations
nineteenth-century societies. In exam ining the form ation o f the new so •
d iscip lin es associated with the d evelopm ent o f the carceral archipelago
more generally, the developm ent o f m odern form s o f g o v e r n m e n ta l
Foucault stresses the respects in w hich these know ledges, in mapping
body with their in dividualizing and particularizing gaze, render the р о р ц ]^
visib le to pow er and, hence, to regulation. W hile the various exhibitionary
kn ow led ges associated with the rise o f the m useum sim ilarly form part 0f
set o f p ow er-k n ow led ge relations, these differ in both their organization and
functioning from those Foucault is concerned with. If the orientation of the
prison is to d iscipline and punish with a v iew to effectin g a modification of
behaviour, that o f the m useum is to show and tell so that the people might
look and learn. The purpose, here, is not to know the populace but to allow
the peop le, addressed as subjects o f k now ledge rather than as objects of
adm inistration, to know; not to render the populace v isib le to power but to
render pow er visib le to the people and, at the sam e tim e, to represent to them
that pow er as their ow n.
In thus rhetorically incorporating an undifferentiated citizen ry into a set
o f p o w er-k n ow led ge relations w hich are represented to it as emanating from
itself, the m useum em erged as an important instrum ent for the self-display
o f b ourgeois-d em ocratic so c ietie s. Indeed, if, in F ou cau lt’s account, the
prison em blem atizes a new set o f relations through w hich the populace is
constituted as the object o f governm ental regulation, so the museum might
serve as the em blem for the em ergen ce o f an eq u ally important new set ot
relations - best sum m arized in G ram sci’s con ception o f the ethical state-
through w hich a dem ocratic citizen ry was rhetorically incorporated into the
p rocesses o f the state. If so, it is important to recall that Gramsci viewed this
as a d istingu ish in g feature o f the m odern b ou rgeois state rather than a
defining attribute o f the state as such. W hereas, he argues, previous ruling
cla sses ‘did not tend to construct an organic passage from the other classes
into their ow n, i.e. to enlarge their cla ss sphere “ tech n ica lly ” and ideo­
lo g ic a lly ,’ the b ou rgeoisie ‘p o ses itse lf as an organism in continuous
m ovem ent, capable o f absorbing the entire society, assim ilating it to its own
cultural and moral le v e l’ (G ram sci 1971: 2 6 0 ). It is in this respect, he
contends, that the entire function o f the state is transform ed as it becom es an
educator. The m igration o f the display o f pow er from , on the one hand, the
public scen e o f punishm ent and, on the other, from the en closed sphere о
court festivals to the public m useum p layed a crucial role in this transform3
tion p recisely to the degree that it fashioned a space in w hich these two
differentiated functions - the display o f pow er to the populace and its displ3'
within the ruling classes - coalesced .
98
THE P O L I T I C A L R A T I O N A L I T Y OF THE M U S E U M
THE MUSEUM AND PUBLIC MANNERS
L this is °n ly half the story. For how ever much it m ay have aim ed at
Yet Qtjng a m ixing and interm ingling o f those publics - elite and popular -
pr° , hitherto tended towards separate form s o f assem bly, the museum
served as an instrument for differentiating populations. In doing so,
lll'S°eover it too form ed a part o f the em ergen ce o f those techniques o f
nl°ulati°n and self-regu lation Foucault is concerned with whereby the
h viour o f large populations is subject to new form s o f social m anagem ent.
appreciate the respects in w hich this is so account m ust be taken o f the
^mergence o f new tech n ologies o f behaviour m anagem ent which allow ed
Museums to offer a technical solution to the problem that had alw ays plagued
sariier forms for the display o f pow er with their attendant risks o f disorder,
дп examination o f these issu es w ill also serve to show how, in spite o f its
formally addressing an undifferentiated public, the practices o f the m useum
served to drive a Wedge b etw een the publics it attracted and that recalcitrant
portion o f the population w hose manners remained those o f the tavern and
the fair.
Foucault describes w ell enough the risks o f disorder associated with the
scene of punishment: ‘on execu tion d a y s,’ he w rites, ‘work stopped, the
taverns were full, the authorities were abused, insults or stones were thrown
at the executioner, the guards and the soldiers; attem pts w ere made to seize
the condemned man, either to save him or to kill him m ore surely; fights broke
out, and there was no better prey for thieves than the curious throng around
the scaffold’ (Foucault 1977: 63). D avid Cooper, noting the fairlike atm o­
sphere o f .public ex ecu tio n s, paints a sim ilar picture for late-eighteenth
century England by w hen, o f course, the fair itse lf had b ecom e the very
symbol o f popular disorder: in 1817, for exam ple, B artholom ew Fair,
suspected o f bein g a breeding ground for sedition , w as attacked by four
regiments o f horse.3 If the birth o f the prison, in detaching punishm ent from
the public scene, was one response to the problem , the birth o f the m useum
Provided its com plem ent. D etaching the display o f pow er - the pow er to
command and arrange objects for display - from the risk o f disorder, it also
P'ovided a m echanism for the transform ation o f the crow d into an ordered
"ul. ideally, self-regulating public.
’’is is not to say that it im m ediately presented itse lf in this light. To the
j-ontrary, in the British con text, the advocates o f public m useum s had to fight
against a tide o f influential opinion w hich feared that, should m useum s
c Pened to the public, they w ould fall victim to the disorderliness o f the
• In conservative opinion, im ages o f the political m ob, the disorderly
were 01 t*le ^a’r‘ or 1^е drunk and debauched rabble o f the pub or tavern
°Pcn' trequently conjured up as interchangeable spectres to su ggest that
’heir'11^ c*00rs m useum s could only result in either the destruction o f
exhibits or the desecration o f their aura o f culture and k now ledge by
99
 HISTORY AND THEORY

unseem ly form s o f behaviour. We know w ell enough from u 1

rational recreations that, in reform ing opinion, m useum s w e ^ 1'teratufe
a m eans o f exp osin g the. working cla sses to the im proving m! envisage^4
o f m idd le-class culture. However, the point I want to stress Ь е ^ 3* 'nfitie *
respect in w hich, con ceived as antidotes to the form s o f beh- ^ С° ПсегпДС '
with places o f popular assem bly, m useum s were also regarded'0^ 3Ss° ciate
capable o f inducing a reform o f public manners - that is as .'nstruirien
external and visible form s o f behaviour quite independentl' °* m° d'fyi11
mental or cultural transform ation.4 ' ot апУ inJ
The m useum , that is to say, ex p licitly targeted the popular bod
for reform , doing so through a variety o f routines and technolo j - ^ °^eq
a shift in the norm s o f bodily com portm ent. This was accom | -V ec'uir'ri?
obviously, by the direct proscription o f those form s o f behaviou^- ^ m0S!
with places o f popular assem bly by, for exam ple, rules forbidding ^
drinking, outlaw ing the touching o f exhibits and, quite frequently^s'ta^
or at least advising - what should be worn and what should not In this'^'
w hile form ally free and open, the m useum effected its own pattern of infor^
discrim inations and exclu sion s. Perhaps more distinctive, however wasth
constitution o f the m useum - alongside public parks and the like - as a space
o f em ulation in which the working cla sses, in being allowed to commingle
with the m iddle cla sses in a form ally and undifferentiated sphere, could learn
to adopt new form s o f behaviour by im itation. Supporters of the exhibitions I
held in the Leeds M echanics Institute thus likened their pedagogic benefits
to those o f public w alking areas w hose virtue, according to one contemporary
was to prom ote 4a gen tle and refined restraint’ which ‘keeps boisterous
pleasure within bounds; and teaches the graceful art o f being gay without
coarseness and ob serving the lim its w hich separate sport from riot’ (cited in
A rscott 1988: 154). In this way, through offering a space of ‘ s u p e rv is e d
con form ity’, the m useum offered a context in which new forms of b e h a v io u r
m ight, in being internalized, becom e self-actin g imperatives.
In these respects, the m useum constituted not merely a culturally t
entiated space but the site for a set o f culturally differentiating Practl
aim ed at screening out the form s o f public behaviour associated w't*1^ eW
o f popular assem bly. The same end was achieved by the d e v e l o p m e n t ^ ^
architectural m eans o f regulating the function o f spectacle. In his e^ cerned
Eye o f P ow er’, Foucault argues that, as architecture ceases to be со ^
with m aking pow er m anifest, it co m es, instead, to serve the p
regulating behaviour by m eans o f new organizations o f the r elati on^ 0i
space and vision - the one-w ay, hierarchically organized system perso#
the penitentiary, for exam ple, or the focu sin g o f the pupil’s gaze jn the‘r
o f the teacher in popular sch o o lin g (Foucault 1 9 8 0 b ) . ^тпЫ6”111111
im posing exteriors, nineteenth-century m useum s retained . ^ (jtutedil>e^
architectural function, changes in their internal architectun- 11 not°n
set o f relations betw een space and vision in which the p u b l i c

100
 jr POLITICAL r a t i o n a l i t y o f t h e m u seu m

r
seelh^seen b y itse s
j por its inspection but could, at the sam e time, see
exbib>ts arI!a,n thus placing an architectural restraint on any incipient

^ cy 10 f° vvcilJ'eSpoint: the 1830s w itnessed an inquiry into the adm inis-

ToforegrOUnd I monuments in Britain. A major finding o f this inquiry
ion ° f anCien ossibility o f arranging for the effec tiv e surveillance o f the
ir3ncerned the 1ГТ1р ljke W estm inster A bbey w hich contained so many nooks
Lublic in buildingjt was com m only used as a public urinal.6 The m useum 's
^ crannies tha ^ (Q admit on iy carefully selected publics, suffered from
precursefs’ de!j ^ con sistin g, often, o f myriad sm all rooms cluttered with
(he same Pr0^ J ^ ot |end them selves to the task o f regulating the conduct o f
objects they ^ creened public. The architectural sources w hich fuelled the
a |arge and njneteenth-c e ntury exhibitionary institutions are many and
development о railway stations, conservatories, market halls and
various: ю name but a few.7 However, three general principles can
departmen^. ^ o f whjch came together for the first time in the Crystal Palace
^ SCrwhich exerted a d ecisive influence on the subsequent developm ent
o" exhibitionary architecture: first, the use o f new m aterials (cast-iron and
sheet elass) to permit the enclosure and illum ination o f large spaces; second,
th e clearing of exhibits to the sides and centres o f display areas, thus allow ing

clear passageways for the transit o f the public, and breaking that public up
from a disaggregated mass into an orderly flow; and, third, the provision o f
elevated vantage points in the form o f galleries w hich, in allow in g the public
to watch over itself, incorporated a principle o f self-su rveillan ce and hence
self-regulation into museum architecture. In thus allow in g the public to double
as both the subject and object o f a controlling look, the m useum em bodied
what had been, for Bentham, a major aim o f panopticism - the dem ocratic
aspiration of a society rendered transparent to its ow n controlling g a ze.x
01 course, this is not to gainsay H ooper-G reenhill’s contention that the
luseum has functioned as an instrument o f d iscipline, nor the fact that the
ihauheV'^!' rema'ns a sPace ° f surveillance in the more obvious sense
T h ese\ e^aV'our op tbe public is monitored by security sta ff or television.
relations°bWeVer' f° rm ° n*y ° ne asPect op the m useum ’s organization o f the
°f self-inspe^611 SpaCe and v is’on which, in affording the public a position
as an agent lor ьГ' ^as aPowed to function - in its own right and directly -
Moreover, in estabbshing and p olicing norms o f public conduct. It is.
tlle sPecific forrn^'f601’ rat^er l^an 'n v 'ew o f its id eological influence, that
deciPhered. B a n w s ° hegem ony Pr°m oted by the m useum can best be
a° a Gramscian one ШаГ1' 'П prePerr'n8 a Foucaultian conception o f hegem ony
helv f° rm of s° c ia largaes.tllat’ f ° r Foucault, hegem ony is to be understood
Posaviour rather th an 0 e si ° n achieved by various w ays o f program m ing
'ban*5' ^ mart 198б'Пт ь Г° и^*1 1^е m ecbanism s o f consent which Gramsci
а8етещ , served to C m useum ’ v *ew ed as a techn ology o f behaviour
organize new types o f social coh esio n p recisely

101
 HISTORY AND THEORY 1

through the new form s o f both differentiating and alignin

brought into being. Its functioning in this respect, howeverP° PUlations
view ed in a com parative light in order to appreciate the disti ’ needs to i*
o f its effort. If, as has been suggested earlier, the prison S erved^ еС° п%
o f d ep oliticizin g crim e by detaching a m anageable criminal sub^6 bU,W
the rest o f the population, the m useum provided its complemen C'aSS fr°ni
new cod es o f public behaviour which drove a w edge between th 'П 'nsti||in
and the rowdy. 10 resPectab||!
In his d iscu ssion o f the schem es o f late eighteenth-century penal
Foucault notes the respects in w hich punishm ent, conceived as ‘ Ге^°ГП1ег5
the Laws that fam ilies w ould visit on S undays’, w as intended to ^ 3^ 61101
programme o f instruction in civ ic eth ics (Foucault 1977: 1Ц ) ]n
however, as punishm ent w as withdrawn from the public scene e eVent'
increasingly the m useum that was con ceived as the primary instr' "
civ ic education. As such its function was a norm alizing one. This wa
a matter o f what it had to show and tell in constructing a norm of hum
w hite, bourgeois and m ale - w hose norm ative status was reinforced byV
display o f all m anner o f deviations: o f the ‘underdeveloped’ crania of I
A borigines at the Pitt R ivers M useum , for exam ple, or elsewhere, of the
alleged ly peculiar crania o f crim inals. But it was also a matter of normalizing
the visitor directly through the influence o f a m achinery for the regulation of I
behaviour. Thus w hen Henry C ole praises the museum for its educative I
potential, it is worth noting what he regards as its ch ie f lesson. ‘It would teach
the young ch ild ’, he w rites, ‘to respect property and behave gently’ (Cole I
1884: 356). G oing to a m useum , then as now, is not m erely a matter of looking
and learning; it is also - and p recisely because m useum s are as much places j
for being seen as for seein g - an ex ercise in civ ics.

T H E P O L I T I C A L - D I S C U R S I V E S P A C E O F T H E MUSElM

The discu rsive space o f the m useum , in its nineteenth-century f ° r m a t ' o n ' ^ ^
thus a h ighly com plex one shaped, in the main, by two contradictions
have served to generate and fuel a field o f political relations and em^ore
peculiar to the m useum form . In considering these contrac*'ctl^nS0|;iics
clo sely I want, in con clud in g, to advance a conception o f muse^ | ier than
w hich, in relating itse lf to these contradictions s e l f - c o n s c i o u s l y r a ^ ^ ^
sim ply occup yin g their grooves, w ould aim to dism antle the s”‘ ^ unl it>
m useum by estab lish in g a new set o f relations between the ate)yas
exhibits and its publics which w ould allow it to function more a ,^.eS
an instrument for the self-d isp lay o f dem ocratic and p l u r a l i s t armandsb8^
The first contradiction, then, that w hich has fuelled politica ^ ^ disPar'^
on the principle o f representational adequacy, has c o n s i s t e d 'e"lb *
betw een, on the one hand, the m u seu m ’s universalist asPirf .nto beif? *
shaped int0
in the claim that the order o f things and peoples it

102
 POLI TICAL R AT I ONA L I TY OF THE M U S E U M

•ve o f humanity and. on the other hand, the fact that any
Hy representad1ispjay can alw ays be held to be partial, selectiv e and
^"-ular mUSeUnl 0n to this ob jective. Paul Greenhalgh puts his finger or.
P^'.'Late 'n re'at‘° here when he notes, in exp lain in g why w o rld ’s fairs
point I’"1 a er(ant points o f focu s for late nineteenth-century fem inists,
tl,£arnesuchinlf their claim s to encyclop aed ic coverage o f world culture,
^ ,because of easjiy exclu de w om en in the w ay other institutions
thib ‘tionS C° ^ (Greenhalgh 1988: 174). It w as, that is to say, only the
vntinually uodirnent o f a principle o f general human universality that lent
m u s ^ S i f i c a n c e to the ex clu sion or m arginalization o f w om en and
potent'al sl^nu'r|,C‘(hereby opening this up as a politicizab le question. The
women's cu tu ^ ^ t)ie range o f demands placed on m useum s on behalf
same.ofcoar.Scal constituencies as the space o f the m useum has been subject
of other po 1 ' Qcess o f politicization in being called on both to expand the
t° a c0"stanre esentati0Pal concerns (to include artefacts relating to the ways
ГЗП|Т °of m a rg in a liz e d social groups, for exam ple) and/or to exhibit fam iliar
Pt rials in new c o n te x ts to allow them to represent the values o f the groups
mat<hich they relate rather than those o f the dominant culture (I have in mind,
f o r example, Aboriginal criticism s o f the evolutionary assum ptions governing

the display o f Aboriginal remains and artefacts in natural history m useum s).
These demands arise out of, and are fuelled by, the internal dynam ics o f the
museum which lends them a pertinence they did not, and could not, have had
in eighteenth-century cabinets o f cu riosities, for exam ple, and still do not
have in relation to their contem porary bow lderized version s, such as the
Ripley Believe It Or N ot M useum s.
Yet, important-though they are, there are clear lim its to what can be
achieved by attempts to hoist the m useum on the petard o f its ow n universalist
rhetorics. Indeed, it is partly as a con sequ en ce o f the host o f com peting
alitical demands placed on it that the pretensions o f the m useum to offer a
"crocosrnic reconstruction o f the order o f things in the world outside the
caJun^h Wal*S haS ЬееП exPloded ‘Tom w ithin. G iven this, rather than
'ioiial^ad2 mUSeUm t0 tas^ 'n accordance with the principle o f representa-
u“*chieveh|UaC^ ~ ther6by Senerating a p o litics w hich, sin ce its goal is
transformi 6 h'S 'nsat'ad'e ~ political effort w ould be better devoted to
museuni vHtor6 relat’0ns between m useum exhibits, their organizers and the
n,useuins, а ц °Г ^ ' S 'S *° suS§est that, in addition to what gets shown in
ta^es part ip thtl0n neec*s a^so t0 he paid to the processes o f show ing, who
csiabliSh be,u.o ° S e Pr0cesses and their con sequ en ces for the relations they
h Presei% to re" t e mUSCUm and ‘he visitor
nri(|den Space ° f the ' ^ ° 0per"^reenh i4 ’s argument, the d ivision betw-een the
a m'be Public spacT m.USeum 'n which know ledge is produced and organized
mus0n°l°gic disconS m Wb'cb 's offered for passive consum ption produces
eUtT1- To break dom 'nated by the authoritative cultural v o ice o f the
ls tscourse dow n, it is im perative that the role o f the

103
 HISTORY AND THEORY

curator be shifted away from that o f the source o f an e x p e r tis e

is to organize a representation claim ing the status o f knowl,mWk n o w le d llC)Se Uncf
that o f the p ossessor o f a .technical com petence w hose fi. anc* Mw 0,1
^ j s . atd
4<
groups outside the m useum to use its resources to make auth tlQn is l0 -»■
w ithin it. A spects o f this reconception o f the m useum ’s funct' ^ 1 st; sta
Staterhe ^
anC
tnc |
be found in a handful o f Australian m useum s w hich have ceded toaA
peoples the right to refashion the display o f Aboriginal mater' '1° ^ b° ri?iiiaiA1
--------- т г .1 in rv-J
make their ow n statem ents on their ow n terms. If the space of "th* 'ПOrder’('o
to becom e more fully d ialogic, and if such statements are not tomUSeUnii'
w ithin - and so, potentially, recuperated by - the official ° Ье 1га,П{с
m useum , the principle em bodied in such experim ents needs to b e ^ '^ °f tlle
thereby, in allow in g the museum to function as a site for the еп2СПеГа1'ге<1'
plural and differentiated statem ents, enabling it to function as a • 'atlo,lof
for public debate. Instru|uent
The second contradiction affectin g the m useum , I have argued с •
the fact that w hile it organized and addressed a public made up 0f f^ '"
equals it also served to differentiate populations via a combination of с I m<
markers which established it in a cultural zone clearly distinct from that of
popular assem b lies and regulatory tech n o lo g ies aimed at modifying the
behaviour o f the visitor. O f course, m any o f the initial arguments made in
favour o f the m useum ’s openness were based on an assessm ent of the benefits
that w ould accrue to the state via the exposure o f the population to its
im proving influence rather than on the basis o f public rights principles. None
the le ss, it is easy to see how, by virtue o f their ow n democratic rhetoric,
m useum s should have b ecom e the objects o f p olitics based on such principles
A gain, however, w hile the requirement that they should be equally accessible
to all is one that flow s out o f the internal dynam ic o f the museum, that same
dynam ic, in so far as the m useum em b odies a m eans for differentiating
populations in accordance with the norms for conduct which it e s ta b lis h e s ,
places im pedim ents in the way o f realizing this objective. Studies of museun
visitors thus make it abundantly clear not only that museum attendance van^
directly with such variables as cla ss, incom e, occupation and, most n
able, education, but also that the barriers to participation, as perceive e
attenders, are largely cultural.9 T hose sections o f the population a
little use o f m useum s clearly feel that the m useum constjtutes a cu
that is not meant for them - and, as w e have seen, not without r^a* ever_ tre
The political issu es posed by this second contradiction, ° creasingl>
com plex and contradictory. For, as m useum s are placed under 1^
strong fiscal pressure, there is enough evidence to suggest that nlUSeufil
ism s o f differentiation which characterized the nineteenth'cU .,ors tojuSl'b
are being slam m ed into reverse. In order to attract sufficient \ lM ihan
continuing public funding, they thus now often seek to xm^ eX&cttse c^Jj-
distinguish them selves from places o f popular a s s e m b l y - • cj, and
puter displays com peting with video parlours, for e x a m p l e »

1 04
 r>! I T I C A L R A T I O N A L I T Y O F T H E M U S E U M
THE P UL
t r u c t io n o f places o f popular assem bly as m useum exhibits
i!S,tb ersc0 f oT e x a m p l e ) , m odellin g m useum shops on the sales
and c'nernaSt’e s W hile these attempts to dem ocratize the ethos o f the
(P,|ets 0f tourlS^ s w elcom ed, their capacity to substantially alter the visitor
l'Llwan1 are 10 ns ;s difficult to assess. Indeed, so long as the education
'"otileS ot.mUSe culturally differentiated population to the m useum ’s doors,
P stem dellVCI,d patterns o f participation can be expected to persist.
^cially ske' ^ teresting political questions, to m y mind, concern the grounds
The more i ^concernjng the equitable apportionm ent o f public resources -
_ bey°ncl,ttl° ^ political desirability o f more equitable patterns o f access to,
for arguin£ museums. The options, as currently posed within the museum
and use о . jargely polarized betw een populist and statist positions - the
profession-^joning ^ m useu m ’s future as part o f the leisure industry,
fo rm e r, „eonle should be given what they want, w h ile the latter,
.iгoiП2 r r
■ the view o f museums as instruments of instruction, argues they
Г'luhTremain means for lifting the cultural and intellectual level o f the
lation. Neither position offers sufficient grounds for v iew in g more
demotic levels of participation in m useum s as necessarily o f any positive
political value if the form s o f participation remain p assive. As with the
political demands based on the principle o f representational adequacy, those
demands brought to bear on the m useum on the basis o f public rights
principles need to be re-thought as pertaining to the right to make active use
of museum resources rather than an entitlem ent to be either entertained or
instructed.

105
 Part II
po licies a n d p o l i t i c s
 M U SE U M S AND
‘TH E P E O P L E ’

One can say that until now folklore has been studied primarily as a
‘picturesque’ elem ent. . . . F olklore should instead be studied as a
■conception o f .t h e world and lif e ’ im plicit to a large degree in
determinate (in tim e and space) strata o f society and in opposition (also
for the m ost part im p licit, m echanical and o b jective) to ‘o ffic ia l’
conceptions o f the world.
(Gram sci 1985: 189)
The issue to w hich Gram sci points here - that o f the political seriousness
attaching to the w ays in w hich the cultures o f subordinate cla sses are studied
and represented - has assum ed a particularly telling sign ifican ce in co n ­
nection with recent developm ents in m useum p o licy in Britain. A lthough
somewhat belatedly com pared with Scandinavian countries and North A m er­
ica, the post-war period-has w itnessed a flurry o f new m useum in itiatives -
folk museums, open-air m useum s, livin g history farm s - orientated towards
the collection, preservation, and display o f artefacts relating to'the daily liv es,
customs, rituals, and traditons o f n on-elite social strata.
T his developm ent is, in its way, as significant as the leg isla tiv e and
administrative reform s w hich, in the nineteenth century, transformed m useum s
from semi-private institutions restricted largely to the ruling and professional
classes into major organs o f the state dedicated to the instruction and
edification o f the general p u b lic. 1 A s a con sequ en ce o f these changes,
museums were regarded by the end o f the century as major veh icles for the
lulfilment o f the- statels new educative and moral role in relation to the
Population as a w hole. W hile late nineteenth-century m useum s were thus
‘T e n d e d /o r the people, they were certainly not o f the people in the sense o f
playing any interest in the lives, habits, and custom s o f either the con-
Porary working classes or the labouring classes o f pre-industrial societies.
T u s e u m s were regarded as providing object lessons in things, their central
coll Sa®e Was t0 m aterialize the pow er o f the ruling clashes (through the
Alb Ctl° ns im perialist plunder which found their way to the V ictoria and
ert Museum, for exam ple) in the interest o f promoting a general acceptance
rui‘ng-class cultural authority.
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

The extension o f the social range, o f m useum concerns in the post-^

period, then, is a new departure. Yet w hile, in a relative sense, it is one to к-
w elcom ed , the con sequ en ce Ls often as Gramsci suggests: nam ely to repres e
the cultures o f subordinate social cla sses not in their real com p lexity but^*
a “ picturesque” elem en t’. A s a con sequ en ce, the terms in w hich the u, П
o f life o f such classes are represented are often so m ortgaged to the d o m in
culture that ‘the p eo p le’ are encountered usually only in those massiv /
idealized and deeply regressive form s w hich stalk the m iddle-class irnagjn
tion. There are, o f course, excep tions and I shall d iscu ss som e o f these shorn
First, though, an exam p le o f the p rocesses through w hich museums ^
portraying ‘the p eo p le’, also sentim entalize them.

A C O U N T R Y S ID E OF TH E M IND: BE A M ISH

V isitors to the North o f England Open Air M useum at Beam ish, set in the
heart o f C ounty Durham, are encouraged to make the V isitor Centre their first
port o f call. For there, the guidebook inform s, they w ill find ‘an introduction
to the North East and its p eople, and an explanation o f what Beam ish is all
about’ (B ea m ish : T he G re a t N o rth ern E x p e rie n c e n.d.). This explanation
takes the form o f a tape-slide show w hich offers tw o interacting accounts of
the region ’s origins. One strand o f the narrative, organized in terms of
g eo lo g ica l tim e, traces the basis o f the region ’s fortunes to the mineral
deposits laid down in the volcanic period. A second strand, concerned with
the human tim e o f the region ’s inhabitants, tells the story o f a tough and
resilient people - retrospectively regionalized through cartoon sketches of,
for exam ple, cloth-capped Iron A ge settlers w ho, in assim ilating successive
w aves o f invasion (Rom an, V iking, Y orkshire), none the less remain the same
throughout all ages, the em bodim ents o f an undiluted and unchanging
regional spirit. It is the con vergen ce o f these tw o strands o f the narrative in
the nineteenth century that purports to account for the North E ast’s unique
history con ceived as the product o f a region b lessed with plentiful mineral
resources and with a p eop le sufficiently tenacious, in ven tive, and, above all
canny enough to exp loit its natural advantages.
A m ythic story, then, and, on the face o f it, a fairly innocuous one for it
d oesn ’t take itself, nor asks to be taken, too seriously. Yet its s i g n i f i c a n c e
con sists as much in how it is told as in what is said. In the early and
concluding parts o f the show, those w hich set the scen e and define the terms
in w hich the region ’s history is told, the com m entary is carried by an
im personal narrator w h ose ‘neutral’ accent and carefully m odulated tone
clearly identify his v o ic e as that o f the hom e counties or the BBC . However,
at a key point in the narrative, the point at w hich the region’s people and ib
mineral resources com e together in the nineteenth-century development 0
the North E ast’s m ining industry, this narrative v o ice g iv es way to anothe^
voice - that o f the region ’s working cla sses - as the story is picked up an

110
 M U S E U M S A N D ‘T H E P E O P L E ’

ed in the thick G eordie accent o f a fictional m iner ( ‘w e call him

deV'e wj10 tells the story o f the region’s industrial developm ent as the result
■^°ntl and me m arrers’ pulling together. The device is a fam iliar one from
‘me
o' 1,1 teievision docum entaries where the v o ic e o f the dom inant culture is
accorded the authoritative role w hile regional v o ic es, often reduced
ualiy
usuao 0f som e local quirkiness or eccentricity, occupy clearly subordinated
-
10 iTions. And so it is here. TItT IisО tl-v
A J ______ 1 4- Ir , i
the/л \v7 oice o f tthe
- K o P r v i l t K tVv <) t 1 С Я / Л Г П Т П О п ! 1П
south that is dominant in
P°s narrative, deriving its authority not m erely from its fam iliar BBC
ociations but also from its anonym ity and the fact that the role accorded
aSS thaf o f narrating the hard truths o f g eo lo g ica l tim e. It is, in short,
1 u lt a n e o u s ly the v oice o f the dominant culture and that o f im personal truth,
jonti’s voice, by contrast, is the voice o f local experience. It em bodies the
0[e _ but the people as en visaged w ithin the dom inant culture; as a
region a l f o l k w hich is as en d lessly cheerful and good natured as it is
e n t e r p r i s i n g and industrious. The v o ice o f Jonti - that o f a cheeky and
ch eerfu l ( j a u n t y ) G eordie chappie - is that o f the regional p eop le as ‘sp oken ’
b y the dominant culture in much the sam e w ay as the v o ice o f the ‘com m on

man’ is spoken by the popular press.

In this respect, the tape-slide show does indeed prepare the visitor for the
museum proper where ‘the p eo p le’ o f the North East can be seen, and see
themselves, only through the cracked lo o k in g -g la ss'o f the dom inant culture.
In the guidebook, Beam ish states its aim as being to exhibit the factors w hich
‘influenced the life and work o f the people o f the region a century ago, when
the North East w as in the forefront o f British industrial d ev elo p m en t’
(Beamish: The G rea t N o rth ern E xp e rie n ce n.d.). A s such, it con sists o f a
series of linked sites (see Figure 4.1) spanning the period from (roughly) the
1790s through to the 1930s, but with the greatest em phasis fallin g on the late
Victorian and Edwardian periods. There is a m odel farm dating from the late
eighteenth century but restored to an approxim ation o f its m id-nineteenth-
century layout and operating conditions; a colliery m eant to represent the
technology and working conditions in the m ining industry on the eve o f the
First World War; a row o f pit cottages, their interiors design ed and furnished
t0 exhibit changes in the tastes and ways o f life o f m ining fam ilies over the
Period from the 1890s through to 1938. The centre o f a market town has also
been reconstructed, com p lete with cob b led streets, a C o-op, pub, and
andstand - a slice o f urban history from the 1830s through to the 1920s
д ich abuts on to a country railw ay station restored to its 1910 condition,
ate f°rm s o f transport (coach and horses, a tram way) connect these sites
e, within them, costum ed m useum workers act out their parts in this
ructed past by displaying traditional industrial and dom estic techniques,
in , dly the significance o f ‘the B eam ish ex p erien ce’ con sists as much
at it excludes as in what it includes. N o m useum can include everyth ing,
tha^°Urse’ but, at Beam ish, there is a pattern to the exclu sion s which su ggests
e museum em bodies, indeed is com m itted to, an institutionalized m ode

111
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

Figure 4.1 Map of Beamish, North of England Open Air Museum

Source: B eam ish, N orth o f E ngland O pen A ir M useum

o f am nesia. One w ould be hard put, for exam ple, to find any materials r e l a t i n g
to the history o f the region's labour and trade union m ovem ents, and the
activities o f the w om en o f the North East in suffrage and fem inist campaigns
go entirely unremarked. In short, the con ception o f the regional people
installed at Beam ish is very much that o f a people without p olitics. Nor is this
entirely a matter o f the m useum ’s absences. Many o f the artefacts displayed
m ight w ell have been exhibited in such a way as to suggest their associations
with popular political m ovem ents. However, the tendency is for them to be
severed o f such associations and to serve, instead, as veh icles for the nostalgic
remembrance o f sentim entalized pasts. The prem ises o f the Anfield Plain
Industrial C o-operative Society, one o f the major sh ow p ieces o f the town
centre, have thus been arranged so as to remind visitors o f old pricing systems
(pre-decim al), serving techn ologies (bacon slicers), and advertisem ents (the
F ry’s b oys). N o m ention is made o f the history o f the co-operative m o v e m e n t '
its aim s and principles, or its relations to other socialist organizations
Sim ilarly, the row o f pit cottages, w hile show ing shifts in interior decor an
dom estic techn ologies, represents these as so lely concerning changes i n taste
rather than relating them to changing social relations w ithin the home
changes in the sexual d ivision o f labour brought about by new domestlC
tech n ologies or by shifts in the structure o f the m ining industry, for е х а т р * е
f M U S E U M S AND ‘T H E P E O P L E ’

the le ss, important though such ab sen ces and om issio n s are, ‘the
[Sh ex p erien ce’ m ust ultim ately be assessed in term s o f what it d o es
^ealllther than o f what it leaves unsaid. O f crucial sign ifican ce from this
say r 0f view are the respects in which the very con ception o f the m useum
P°',lt embodim ent o f the region ’s history has been realized by bringing
aS ^her buildings and artefacts from different areas o f the North East. The
t0^ v station, for exam ple, has been reassem bled from the com ponents o f
fiil umber o f different disused stations dating from the period o f the North-
3 ° t e r n R ailw ay Company, w hile the tow n centre in clu d es, in addition to the

о op’f t° m A nfield Plain, a bandstand and a row o f G eorgian -style m iddle-

° ss houses from G ateshead. Sim ilarly, w hile the co llie ry buildings and
li of the pit-head m achinery are from the m useum ’s im m ediate environs,
jb e r o w o f pit cottages has been brought to the site from Hetton le-H o le, near
S u n d e r l a n d . It is only by severing these b uildings from their particular and

local histories and bringing them together on the sam e site that B eam ish is
able to organize that con ception o f the North East as a d istinctive region
with a distinctive people w h ose interacting histories the m useum then claim s
to realize.
Rather more significant, perhaps, is the fact that these diverse b uildings
and the artefacts they contain are also im agined as b elon gin g to the sam e
essential and unified tim e. A nd this in spite o f the fact that the m useum spans
the period from the 1790s to the 1930s, with all the major exh ib its being
clearly dated. For the differentiation o f tim es w ithin this period im presses
itself on the visitor with le ss force than the overw h elm in g sen se o f an
undifferentiated tim e su ggested by the m u seu m ’s settin g. At B eam ish ,
everything - 'n o matter how old it is - is frozen at the sam e point in time:
the moment o f transition from a rural to an industrial society. It m atters little
whether som e parts o f the town date from the 1830s and others from the
1920s, or w hether the intereiors o f the pit cottages are m eant to span the
period from the 1890s to the 1930s; the very fact o f reconstructing these
earlier industrial tech n ologies and associated form s o f so cia l organization
•n the heart o f the cou n trysid e has the e ffe c t o f in stallin g the visito r in a
twilight zone betw een the rural past and the fu lly industrialized present. At
Beamish the p rocesses o f industrialization are represented on a human and
manageable scale, taking the form o f little islands o f industrialism and
Ufbanism w hich em erge from , and yet also harm onize w ith, the surrounding
c°untryside.
Not just any countryside either. The m useum is set in the grounds o f
fa m is h Hall, fam ily hom e o f the Shafto fam ily until 1952 and, before that,
to notab*e fam ilies as the Eden fam ily in a line o f ow nership traceable
the 6 ^er'oc* Norm an C onquest. B eam ish Hall still stands, servin g as
l°ca^IT1'm Strat'Ve centre o f the m useum and housing a further exh ib ition o f
cervt ^*Story artefacts. But it is also the m u seu m ’s con trolling id eo lo g ica l
e ’ a bourgeois country house under w hose con trolling gaze there is

113
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

organ ized a harm onious set o f relation ship s - betw een

agriculture and industry, for exam p le, as w ell as b e t w e e ^ and c9
in occu p yin g separate zon es (the m iddle cla sses d o m in g " ClasSes ^
the w orking c la sses liv e by the co llie r y ), seem to liVe 6 ^ t0vvn 4 ■
in harm ony with one another, each accep ting its ац Slde ЬУ side lc-
con seq u en ce is that the story o f industrial developm ent ° Ued Space. y4
rather than bein g told as one o f ruptures, conflicts 'шн"1 the N° rth p
t • ■
—■ —■
—’ ~ ■ — * l*4u tryn?f
em erges as a p rocess that is essen tia lly continuous with t h ation!
lon ger history o f a cou n trysid e in w hich the pow er o f the a4c
has b ecom e naturalized. It is, in this respect, sim ilar to th b° Urge<4
G orge M useum w hich, as Bob W est puts it, ‘ironically reconstfl Ir° nbridgt
o f the industrial through a t ^ c an© -idealisation o f an orea 'tUteS 3 Sen^
(W est 1985: 30). 2 ^ j u r a l i sn,-
Speaking o f the ascendancy, in the late Victorian period 0f
con ception s o f the ‘English way o f lif e ’, Martin W iener writes'

This countryside o f the mind w as everything industrial society was

- ancient, slow -m ovin g, stable, cosy, and ‘spiritual’. The English
gen iu s, it declared, w as (despite appearances) not economic or tech
nical, but social and spiritual; it did not lie in inventing, producing or
( sellin g, but in preserving, harm onising, and moralising. The English
character was not naturally p rogressive, but conservative; its greatest
task - and achievem ent - lay in tam ing and ‘c iv ilisin g ’ the dangerous
en gin es o f progress it had unw ittingly unleashed.
4— “ —• (Wiener 1985:6)

B eam ish m ay boast o f the North E ast’s inventors, such as the S te p h e n s o n s ,

and sin g the virtues o f its canny and industrious people. And it may claim
that the North East spearheaded the p rocesses o f industrialization, leading
in areas w here the rest o f the country w ould only follow later. At i «
sam e tim e though, and <outweighing this region alist rhetoric, ^ ^
su cceed s in tam ing ‘the dangerous en g in es o f progress’ in se? ™ ^ |
m aterialize the cou n trysid e o f the mind o f wit vVienei write
imaginar-'
thereby,
n i c i c u j 1, to mаake
i\j т actual
кс a a purely iim
tiu a i a aginary
iiia history.
g in a i ^ n i o iv z i ;. *And
- — *yet an ^ ^
history w hose cultural pow er is very considerable. Why e*se jndu>'
thought that the h istory o f a century and m ore o f l a r g e ^ disn}2-1
trialization and urbanization m ight be adequately r e p r e s e n t e ssenlblW
lin g industrial structures from their original l o c a t i o n s an a(,coUnt,l’'
them in such a cou n try-h ou se setting? How else m‘®b' I^ caS[le,
B e a m ish ’s ability to attract visitors from G a t e s h e a d a n d ^ eW
rent’ ‘°Jd
the ravages o f in du strialization are on ly too readily ^ ^ gjjgn a1'0^
constructed idyll u n less, to borrow from M ichel F ° ucaU^‘ j.atj0n, aP3
history, w e recogn ize it as ‘a place o f rest, certainty, reC0
o f tranquillised s le e p ’ (Foucault 1972: 14).
 MUSEUMS AND 'THE PEOPLE'

F ** r T H E PAST: S C A N D I N A V I A N AND
P E ° PLI A M E R I C A N F O R E R U N N E R S
о surprising. As was noted earlier. Beam ish form s a part
,1'this is n0t ' ° ° ed extension and dem ocratization o f the interests and
M.UCmoie broadly museums in the post-w ar period. Opened in the 1970s, it
1,13, erns o f BrltlS . nlUseum in England - but not in Britain: that title goes
■4’n\he fifSt ° ре,Пк Museum at St Fagan’s w hich opened in 1946 - and, like
Wdsh Fol' m s , has been deeply shaped and influenced by the
U’0St other such ^ m u S g u m form . The first such museum w as opened by
мгМегhistory ° t Skansen, near Stockholm , in 1891. C onsisting o f re-
Artur HazellUS buildings, a manor house, craft industries, a log church,
jssefflbled farm ^ ^ the ]jke! the m useum was staffed with guides
uocks. 'vhl^ j kScostu m es, with strolling m usician s and folk dancers re-
Jressed m a to n a l customs. The popularity o f the m useum led to sim ilar ones
..„actingtrJ gd in other European countries in the late nineteenth and early
beinS “ J^nturies. The interest in folk culture, w hich developed earlier in
andinavian societies than anywhere else, had originally been a progressive
henomenon, a part, as Peter Burke puts it. o f ‘a m ovem ent o f revolt against
he centre by the cultural periphery o f Europe; part o f a m ovem ent, among
intellectuals, towards self-definition and liberation in regional or national
:erms’ (Burke 1977: 145). By the end o f the century, however, M ichael
Wallace suggests that this interest in folk culture had degenerated into a form
of a backward-looking romanticism:

The Skansen movement blended rom antic n ostalgia with dism ay at the
emergence of capitalist social relations. A s the new order had intro­
duced mechanised mass production, a burgeoning working class, and
class conflict, these m useum s, often organised by aristocrats and
аМ0^ '0113'5' S6t ° Ut t0 Preserve ar|d celebrate fast disappearing craft
fab ГиГа1 1гас*'1'0П5' What they com m em orated, and in som e degree
" r d’ WaS lhe f o lk ’, visu alised as a harm onious
Population of peasants and craft workers.
(W allace 1981: 72)
And worse * ~~
f°rm was trans T C° me w^‘en ’ *n the 1920s and 1930s, the open-air museum
ninL‘teenth center*116^ t0 ^™ er'can so 'l- Throughout the greater part o f the
Jterest in tbe deU; y.’ t*le U ^A ’s elites had displayed com paratively little
>ldrC° Ver’ SUch in te°Pment ° f museurns or the preservation o f historic sites.
er^nierican f a ” ?St 3S ^ еге was cam e largely from representatives o f the
:he^C1‘vities, 0r the ' W'10se w ealth derived from inherited land, mercant-
АгПе^ с1|пё organizaf" У pllases ° f industrial d evelopф en t. Indeed, many o f
^evolution°(n 'П t*16 Preservati ° nist lobby - the Daughters o f the
fs be able to tra - A ^ - ’ *°Г exam Ple ~~ exp licitly required that their
aCC l^e 'r descent to one o f the early co lo n is ts.2 If the
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

representatives o f corporate capital, the real driving fo r c e '

econom y in the late nineteenth century, displayed relativ 1П, Atp
questions
ч o f m useum
................ ............. -and heritage
........... j . p olicy, this
was part| was na ^ l'tt*e b te^ 1
matters had been colon ized by the U S A ’s patrician elites i ecaUse t'j
clearlyу intended
uiicnucu to iu exclu
сд и и и deс the
шс vulgarity
vuiguiny ouif the ri .,Ways
me n o uveau riche d whicj1.S
,СЦ.Ucb
because a disinterest in, even disdain for, the past could find
in those elem ents o f the A m erican republican tradition w h ic h МГ° П8 supJ!
just as the U SA had been founded through a series o f breakC° n.tentle(ltlT
so it could continue to be true to itself, to its ow n d y n a m ic ^ ttle Pas
it continually regarded the past as fit only for the rubbish d ^ m ^ 6’ 0n**if
rather than as som ething to be fetish ized and "mem orialized'^' tl'Sl°r)
Hawthorne sum m arized this v iew n icely w hen, in 1862 he
reflections prom pted by a visit to the W arwickshire village of Wq,COrtie<1 h>'

Rather than the m onotony o f sluggish^ages, loitering on a village

toilin g in hereditary fields, listening to the pars rone length*
through centuries in the grey Norm an churchrlet us welcome whateT*
change may com e - change o f place, social custom s, political instil
tions, m odes o f w orship - trusting th a t. . . they w ill but make room for
better system s, and for a higher type o f man to clothe his life in them
and to fling them o f f in turn.
(Cited in Lowenthal 1985: 116)

M ichael W allace argues that the influence o f this tradition declined appre­
ciably in the aftermath o f the First World War. So did the balance of influence
w ithin the preservationist lobby as, in the context o f serious labour difficulties
on the dom estic front and the spectre o f revolution in Europe, ‘corporate
capital m oved to the forefront o f the return to the past’ (Wallace 1981: 6 8 1
It is one o f the ironies o f history that Henry Ford, who had earlier denounced
history as bunk, w as a prime m over in these developm ents and, in Greenfiel
V illa g e, opened in 1929, w as responsible for one o f the first °Pe"^
m useum s in the U SA - yet one which significantly transformed
ex c lu siv e ly European genre, just a s_ it also em bodied a break ^ ^ 1
priorities o f earlier Am erican preservationist organizations, ^ a^aCppected by j
som ething o f this dual transformation o f earlier museum f ° rms^. ^ pa,f
G reenfield V illage in his d iscu ssion o f the kind o f ‘peopling
em bodied in this im aginary tow nship o f yesteryear:

Ford's G reenfield V illage can best be understood as an ^ п1е^ аП, Hc

Skansen. Ford celebrated not ‘the fo lk ' but the Common^
rejected the D A R ’s approach o f exalting fam ous Patr’otS,a^-fjCes. ^
elites. Indeed, he banished rich m en’s hom es, law yers ^ (0 blaL'k"
banks, from his village. This m useum -ham let paid homag 311
sm iths, m achinists, the frontier farm ers, c e l e b r a t e d cra*\ nCjng ^
dom estic labour, recalled old social custom s like square

116
 M U S E U M S A N D ‘T H E P E O P L E '

Г F*
of
praised the ‘tim eless and dateless' pioneer virtues
“discipline, frugality, and self-relian ce. It was a pre-

d work- 0 ■
ha,ist Eden lmmuu
modern ills, peopled with men and women

caPu!racter- (W allace 1981: 72)

of c hai

destined to develop beyond itself, and for the better,

( j, was an Et yd lage also contained an Industrial M useum w hich, in
^ ‘ntuch as thenV ventions o f men o f gen iu s, supplied the m echanism o f
"iebratifg the 1 , which the idyllic past em bodied in the rest o f the village
jeveloPment ‘^ 'im p roved on. In this way, W allace su ggests, G reenfield
si"ce ways in offering a vision o f ‘the good old days' since
Milage had u ,(а,ы progress, things have only got better. ‘The two
when. Jue t° ther-i as W allace puts it, life had been better in the old days
messages toge ’ beUer eyer sjnce _ added up to a corporate em p lo y er’s
I edUbauf®611® °■
of history (ibid.. /3).
u"'°" message of Beamish is much the sam e, except that the engines o f
„ ress are attributed to the qualities o f the region’s people rather than being
^rfrayed as the fruits o f individual genius and. rather than being housed in
a separate museum, are dispersed throughout the site, seem ing to grow
naturally out of the countryside. And this, as w e have seen, is not just any
countryside but that distinctively bourgeois countryside o f the mind in w hich
t h e present emerges uninterruptedly from a past in w hich the presence and
leading role of the bourgeoisie is eternally naturalized. This ability to
transform industrialism from a set o f ruptural events into a mere m om ent in
th e unfolding of a set of harm onious relations betw een rulers and people may
■*ell turn out to be a distinctively English contribution to the developm ent o f
the open-air museum form.
1brief, then, there are grounds for caution regarding the effects o f the more
emottc and socially expansive orientation towards the past that has been
advanced* *3° St"War museum Р°1'СУ- And this in spite o f the arguments often
^ ever da ^aVOur ~ ^as at least acknow ledged the importance o f
"tuseums Uy *'Ves ordinary working people. For w hile w h a t is shown in
jnd represented*0143111’ ^ ^uest‘on op ^ o w m useum artefacts get displayed
‘gnificant Fr 3ndtllUS ° E What t*ley are macle t0 mean - is at least as
Ja el°pment о Г tlllS Pe rs Pe c t' v e - >1 Beam ish is anything to go by, the
bves and cust* eUlr‘S concerned primarily with artefacts relating to the
Past 'П which thet0tl|1S ° rdinary Peo p le ’ has resulted in a ‘peopling o f the
|)Urgeois cU|tUre a° j tUreS 3nd values of non-elite strata are subordinated to
i1(^ eurris which devel Va'U es-iust as effectiv ely as they are in the great public
and 'SWr° u8ht rather d T ^ ^ ^ n'netecnt^ century. However, this subordina-
^'Perig6 Wtl'ch, perha's resldt op a different id eological econom y
ence Precisely to th e ^ ** ^reater саРас’1У f ° r organizing the visitor's
117
e degree that it is more likely to pass unnoticed.
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

In the nineteenth-century m useum the cultures o f subord'

- and largely still are - a sim ple absence, excluded nQt 0 '?ate classes I
definition (the working classes were not regarded as havin a
o f preservation) but also as a matter o f deliberate policy ( о ^ CU^Ure
p eop le by exp osin g them to the beneficial influence o f middle*'11^ 0''''’?'^
To visit institutions like the V ictoria and Albert is, a c c o r d in g °*aSs
and w itness the pow er o f the ruling culture, a pow er w h ic h У 1° ехРеПее
precisely through its ability to exclu d e everything which ™anifests
elusion, is defined as other and subordinate. There is as я I r° u§h its .
9 d o Cl C O r i S P n i

least for m ost o f us - nothing fam iliar w hich m ight help us to Ce'ai
at hom e there. H owever, if w e know that w e are out o f our 3ntlfee’
know that this effect is not accidental, that w e are in the m id st ^ Weal*
lesson in things w hich, in som e m easure, instructs thronab an %С!
intim idate. gh lts caPac,,v I(
Beam ish by contrast, works on the ground o f popular memory and
it. In evoking past w ays o f life o f w hich the visitor is likely to have hacT
direct or, through parents and grandparents, indirect knowledge and"^'
perience, the overw helm ing effect is one o f an easy-going at-homeness
fam iliarity. At the sam e time, though, what one is at home with has so
speak, been shifted elsew h ere through the specific political and ideological
association s w hich are lent to those rem em bered pasts by means of the
rhetoric - the countryside o f the m ind - which governs the ways in which a
past is selectiv ely recalled and reconstructed. O f course, there is no reason
to suppose that each and every visitor w ill consent to this restyling of popular
m em ory, or experience it without som e feelin g o f unease or contradiction
For the ground o f popular m em ory - that is, o f the institutions which organize
the terms in w hich the past is m ost com m only perceived and ‘remembered -
is not an even one. If Beam ish works along with certain dominant modes о
styling a sentim entalized past (a visit to the m useum is a bit like spending»
day as an extra in an episode o f W hen the B o a t C om es In ), the 1га(*11|<|"51)1{
labour, trade union, and fem inist history provide resources which. ^ ^
visitor is so m inded, m ight be called on to resist the lure of that Pas^ '^ lb
the text o f the m useum entirely w ithout contradictions of its ° j'n, are |eas>
cracks, som e o f them occurring at the level o f those practices Wporexampk
su sceptib le to planned control: the conduct o f m useum workers. ^ ,llit|ientic
w hen I last visited Beam ish the carefully contrived illusion о ^ е и 1"
historical m ilieu (see Figure 4.2) w as n icely undercut by a costu ^ ^
worker w ho, in the m idst o f dem onstrating traditional technu-l^ ac0lleag11^
m aking in a carefully reproduced pit-cottage kitchen, chatte ^ .s0(je o i'''
on D ennis N orden’s perform ance in the previous evening
B e A lr ig h t on the N ig h t. relati°n 10 ^
However, these are general points that m ight be mac*e ^ e shou^.
m useum or, indeed (for this is how I am s u g g e s t i n g w -^plica1'011
1 Up t h g j f 1***1
m useum s), any text. And, how ever valid they m ight ne,

118
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

lim ited. N o matter how true it m ight be that the ideal text o f Beamish
be disrupted by its performers or that visitors may read against the graj^-
that text, it rem ains the case that the m useum exem p lifies a deeply
servative ‘peopling o f the past’ in w hich the legacy o f earlier moments
d evelopm ent o f the open-air m useum form is readily apparent. Eon
though, this is not to su ggest that the sam e result n ecessarily р0ц ^
w henever and wherever m useum s concern them selves with the preservat^
and display o f m aterials relating to the daily liv es and custom s o f ‘ordin °n
p eo p le’. W hile a conservative rom anticism may be strongly associated
such practices historically, this connection is not an intrinsic or necessa
one. It can be and, in view o f the increasing popularity o f ‘m useum ing’ as^
leisure activity, needs to be broken.3 The realization o f such an objective on
any significant scale w ould, o f cou rse, be dependent on changes in the
structures o f control over m useum s and a radical reorganization of' their
relations to different groups in the com m unity. To pursue these questions
properly w ould require another article. However, som ething o f their signific­
ance can be gleaned from a brief consideration o f tw o m useum s - Hyde Park
Barracks in S ydney and P eo p le’s P alace in G lasgow - which have been
clearly com m itted to the project o f producing other p eop les and other pasts
free from those so cia lly dominant form s o f the sentim entalization of the
p eop le w hich have plagued the developm ent o f open-air m useum s, folk
m useum s, and the like.

O T H E R P E O P L E S , O T H ER PASTS

A ccording to the official guide

The Hyde Park Barracks presents a social history o f N ew South Wales.

Rather than a history o f great individuals, it is a history o f people’s
everyday lives and exp eriences. The exh ib itions cover tw o centuries of
A ustralian social life: people celebrating, im m igrating, com ing to town
for the show, building hom es, living in the Barracks.
{The M in t a n d the H yd e P a rk B a rra c ks 1985: 16)

Like B eam ish, then, a m useum concerned with the everyday liv es o f ordinary
people. U nlike Beam ish, however, those people are not reduced, to recall
G ram sci’s terms, to being ‘a picturesque elem en t’. Located in the ce n tr e o.
Sydney, Hyde Park Barracks is concerned m ainly to recall and c o m m e m o r a te
m om ents in the popular history o f that city. ‘The p eo p le’ represented in
m useum is thus prim arily an urban p e o p le and one that is in good measure
defined in opposition to ‘official con ception s o f the w orld ’.
This aspect o f the m useum is m ost con sp icu ous in the display ‘Sydne'
C elebrates’ w hich, in exhibiting m aterials relating to the public c e le b r a tin g
through which the c ity ’s history is con ven tionally punctuated, s y s te m a t i c 3 ^,
undercuts and d isavow s the con sensu alist rhetoric w hich form ed a part

120
 M U S E U M S A N D ‘T H E P E O P L E ’

celebrations and has governed the terms in which they have since been
t*1° e ented w ithin official discourse. This is achieved partly by drawing
fCPr . n t0 those groups w hich were exclu ded, or excluded them selves, from
aIt£ celebrations. The text accom panying the m aterials relating to the
tb°s^ tjons in 1938 o f the 150th anniversary o f A ustralia’s European
\ ment thus notes that floats depicting con vict life or the activities o f trade
set. s were banned from public parades in the city in the interests o f
^'resenting Australian history as a process free from bitterness and conflict.
reP tellingly, the text also inform s us that 26 January 1938 - the anniversary
f the founding o f the first European settlem ent at Port Jackson - was also
°iiosen as the date for a D ay o f Mourning C onference organized by A bori­
ginal leaders. Sim ilarly the section o f the display relating to the opening o f
« dney Harbour Bridge in 1932 - a public celebration in w hich there w as an
unusually heightened degree o f popular participation ow in g to the vital role
the bridge’s constructipn had played in the c ity ’s w orking-class econom y -
stresses the deep social d iv ision s o f the depression years. In further noting
that the Labor governm ent o f N ew South W ales had declined to invite a
representative o f the royal fam ily to open the bridge on the grounds that there
were more pressing claim s on the public purse, an an ti-colonialist edge is lent
to the pro-working-class sentim ents w hich animate the display.
In these respects, then, the exh ib ition o f artefacts relating to popular
involvement in the c ity ’s public culture is inform ed by a con sciou s p olitical
didactic. The sam e is true o f som e o f the other main displays. In the room
devoted to the theme ‘Bound for Botany B a y ’, for exam ple, the story o f
successive w aves o f im m igration to A ustralia is told by m eans o f a series o f
individual narratives selected for their typicality and organized to prom ote
critical reflection on the relations betw een past and present social conditions.
Thus the story o f the period o f transportation is told so as to stress the sim ilar
relationships betw een unem ploym ent and rising crim e rates in nineteenth-
century Britain and contem porary Australia.
In sum, Hyde Park Barracks not only d iffers from B eam ish at the obvious
level of its content, but also m anifests and em bodies a different w ay o f
conceiving and representing a people and their history. In part, no doubt,
•hese differences reflect the different gestation periods for the two m useum s
and, related to this, the different kinds o f curatorial inputs which conditioned
eir developm ent. The initial planning phase for B eam ish occup ied the
Period from 1958 to 1971 with the responsibility for collectin g and arranging
^a,erials relating to the cultural lives o f the popular cla sses being allocated
folk-fife assistants at a tim e when, in Britain, the tradition o f fo lk -life
,es was (and rem ains) deeply influenced by romantic con ception s o f the
^ P e as parts o f a picturesque landscape (B ea m ish O ne 1978). H yde Park
l ^ ac^s, by contrast, w as transformed into a m useum over the period
oWj ’ a period o f renew ed vigour in Australian historical scholarship
£ to the ch allen ges o f important new work in labour, fem inist, and

121
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

A boriginal history - intellectual currents w hich fed into the concept;

and planning for the m useum via the em phasis that was placed on ° П
history as its m ain curatorial focu s.
A fuller appreciation o f the distinctiven ess o f Hyde Park Barracks and
assessm ent o f its significance w ithin the Australian context, however аП
’
1
S°c'y

quires that it be view ed in the light o f both adjacent and earlier d e v e lo p ^ re.
in Australian m useum policy. For the fact that the m useum is concerned 'nts
A u stra lia n social life is at least as significant as its orientation to w a rd s^
everyday habits and custom s o f the ordinary citizen . Or rather, its signified
con sists in its com bination o f these tw o points o f focu s. For in b e ^
concerned with the everyday liv es o f ordinary people w ho, in being identified
as Australian, are thereby also distinguished from and opposed to colonial
con ception s o f A ustralia as an outpost o f the British em pire, Hyde par|.
Barracks m aterializes and m akes present what had been conspicuously absent
from earlier Australian m useum s: the sense o f a national people with an
autonom ous history.
This was com m ented on w hen, in the 1930s, the Carnegie Corporation
com m ission ed a survey o f Australian m useum s. T he resulting report, pub­
lished in 1933, drew particular attention to the relative lack o f interest evinced
by Australian m useum s in the co llectio n and display o f m aterials relating to
the history o f the continent's European settlem ent. O nly three museums, it
was observed, were given over entirely to aspects o f post-settlem ent history-
and one o f these, the Australian War M em orial, was not officially opened
until 1941. N or w as post-settlem ent history particularly w ell represented in
other m useum s, and least o f all those aspects o f Australian history relating
to the liv es o f ordinary A ustralians. The authors o f the report thus remarked
particularly on the fact that ‘in no m useum are there reproductions of the
buildings occup ied by the earlier settlers’, regarding this as ‘one o f the most
notable gaps in the w hole o f the existin g m useum c o llec tio n s’ (Markham and
Richards 1933: 44). Yet m useum s had been established in Australia from as
early as the 1820s and, by the 1930s, many o f them had built up impressive
g eo lo g ica l and natural history co llectio n s as w ell as extensive collections ol
Aboriginal relics and cultural artefacts (K ohlstedt 1983).
W hy, then, should the period sin ce 1788 have seem ed so devoid o f interest
to m useum s? A part o f the answ er con sists in the disciplinary specialists
(usually geo lo g y or b iology) o f their curators. However, this in itself vvaS
m erely a sym ptom o f a deeper cultural problem: the perception, owing to the
predom inance o f Eurocentric con ception s, that Australia, a fledgling am°n-
the nations o f the world, had no history that was worthy o f preservati011
display, or com m em oration. This was less true o f the 1930s than it had beeJ
o f the late nineteenth century w hen, at least to the mem bers o f the со'оП^ е
b ourgeoisie, it had seem ed that the p ost-settlem ent period did not furnish
kind o f raw m aterials out o f w hich a past could be forged w hich could cl®
su fficien t dignity and solem n ity to v ie with the European pasts vv

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 M U S E U M S A N D ‘T H E P E O P L E ’

l ed their point o f cultural reference in such m atters.4 Compared with the

sU^ h national past - a past, as m aterialized in public cerem onials and
. ms organized primarily around the deeds o f m onarchs, m ilitary heroes,
^ at statesm en - ’the activities o f the early colon ists (the co n v icts, the
^ j n e s wh ° p ohced them , later settlers, gold diggers, bush-rangers) seem ed
"’V n g in substance o f a sim ilar kind.
,aC , n0t surprising, given this background, that the first m useum to be
eived as a national institution and to devote itself entirely to the history
C°( h e post-settlem ent period should have been the Australian War M em orial.
° its' remembrance o f the heroism o f Australian troops in Europe and the
Middle East (the theatres o f ‘real h istory’), this institution - intended as both
museum o f the nation’s m ilitary history and a shrine to its war dead -
'n a b le d there to be figured forth and m aterialized an Australian past which
,oU|d claim the same status, w eight, and dignity as the European pasts it so
clearly sought to em ulate and surpass.5
What is perhaps rather more surprising is the fact that the War M em orial
is still the only fu lly national m useum in A ustralia and w ill remain so until
the M useum o f A ustralia opens in 2 0 0 1 . This w ill constitute a significant
moment in the developm ent o f A ustralian m useum p olicy, particularly as
one of its three main galleries w ill be devoted to the p ost-settlem ent period.
It is important, how ever, to view the d evelopm en t o f this m useum in a
broader perspective. For its opening w ill constitute m erely the culm ination
and most v isib le m anifestation o f a protracted phase in the d evelopm ent o f
Australian museum and, m ore generally, heritage p olicy, in w hich the earlier
lack of interest in the preservation and display o f m aterials relating to the
post-settlem ent period has been sign ifican tly reversed. Apart from the
marked increase in the degree o f im portance accorded these overlapping
areas o f cultural p olicy, both have m anifested a sim ilar com m itm ent to the
production and organization o f a m ore clearly autonom ized A ustralian past,
one which, by severing the ties o f d ependency through w hich (although
always with som e degree o f am bivalence and ten sion ) the Australian past
had earlier been associated with the lon ger past o f the British state, stands
more clearly on its ow n.
The legislative peaks o f these developm ents are soon summarized: the
establishment o f the Australian C ouncil o f N ational Trusts in 1967; the
publishm ent o f a C om m ittee o f Inquiry into the N ational Estate in 1973
eading, in 1976, to the enactm ent o f the Australian Heritage B ill and the
Subsequent com pilation o f a register o f protected properties; and, finally, the
^ b lis h m e m , in 1974, o f a C om m ittee o f Inquiry on M useum s and National
Au eCt-°nS as 'ts m ost significant legislative outcom e, the M useum o f
ralia Act, 1980. This is, by any standards, a quite excep tionally con-
s rated rush o f legislative activity aim ed at increasing the scope o f those
Pas CS’ ^ ' ^ i n g s , and artefacts which are officially zoned as belonging to the
while, at the sam e tim e, nationalizing that past.

123
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

and fuelled by the ‘new n ation alism ’ o f that period. Indeed the w illinen
o f Labor adm inistrations, state and federal, to preserve historic sites "fro"
threatened destruction by developers served as a key em blem o f this ‘ne^
nationalism ’ and its com m itm ent to representing the interests o f ‘all a Us
tralians’ against what were seen as the so cia lly and environm entally destruct
ive activities o f both international corporations and dom estic elites. 'N o r was
it m erely at the level o f governm ental p o licies that this rhetoric was
enunciated and put into practice. The cam paigns, in the early 1970s, of
resid en ts’ action groups to save historic sites and buildings threatened by
inner-city d evelopm ent projects and th e support offered those campaigns by
the Builders Laborers Federation in banning work on the sites in dispute are
the best in dices o f the degree to w hich the issu e o f conservation had acquired
popular and dem ocratic associations (N ittim 1980).
It was against the im m ediate political con text o f these cam paigns that the
d ecision to transform Hyde Park Barracks into a m useum o f the city ’s social
history w as taken. Initially a con vict dorm itory from its opening in 1819 to
1848, w hen the era o f transportation drew to a c lo se , the building subr
sequently served a variety o f functions (a reception centre for female
im m igrants and a lunatic asylum , for exam ple) as w ell as housing a range of
governm ent o ffic es (the V accine Institute and Inspector o f Distilleries, for
instance) until the 1960s w hen, together with the adjacent R oyal Mint, it too
w as threatened with d em olition as part o f inner-city developm ent schem es.
The d ecision to preserve the building and open it to the public as a m useum
w as clearly a response to both the cam paigns o f local resident action groups
and the strong support these had received at the federal le v e l.6
It w ould, however, be a m istake to p osit too direct or immediate a
connection betw een this originating p olitical context and the orientation to
the past that has sin ce been m aterialized in the m useum itself. There are to°
many intervening variables for this to be credible. Moreover, the text of t^
m useum itself is an uneven and contradictory one. The influence o f differe^1
curatorial v isio n s is readily d iscern ib le as one m oves from one root11 1
another. W hile those I have briefly outlined m anifest an intention to c*isrj e
and call into question socially dom inant con ception s o f the past, there
others o f w hich this is not true. The room devoted to changing styleS
dom estic architecture, for exam p le, fails just as sign ally as do the pit cott' ъ

124
г M U S E U M S A N D ‘T H E P E O P L E ’

_ ; c h tn s u e e e s t a n v c ritic a l o e rs D e c tiv e s o n c h a n s i n e s o c ia l re la tio n s

10 w n itn 11 c o n c e iv e s anu ic p ic s c iiis in c su cia i anu cu n u rai

in ory 0 f the city as som ething d istinct from , and having no organic
P|S eCtions with, its political history. W hile thus evoking popular cultures
c°JJnways o f life, these are not con n ected to any p olitical traditions or

t opened as a m useum , one 01 me icm jjoiaiy СЛ111 uuiuu luuins was given
r to a display o f trade-union banners and other m em entoes o f the c ity ’s
labour m ovem ent. The subsequent rem oval o f this display, and, to date, the
failure to replace it with displays o f an equivalent kind, has profoundly
Itered the w hole id eological econom y o f the Barracks in depriving it o f a
oint o f political reference to w hich the representations o f popular custom s,
trad ition s, and ways o f life might be connected and thus be lifted above what
often remains a level o f purely anecdotal significance.
This point can be underlined by m eans o f a brief contrast with the P eo p le’s
Palce in Glasgow, an institution w hich altogether justifies the claim o f its
present curator that there ‘is no m useum , gallery, arts or com m unity centre
quite like it anywhere else in the w orld ’ (King 1985). It was excep tional in its
conception as h ousing under one ro o f a m useum , picture gallery, winter
garden, and m usical hall, a place o f both popular instruction and popular
entertainment. It has been excep tional, as a m useum , in having had the good
fortune to be adm inistered since its opening in 1898 by a city corporation
with one o f the lon gest and strongest traditions o f m unicipal socialism in
Europe.'It is also excep tional in its location as the focal point o f G lasgow
Green, an important centre o f G la sg o w ’s popular culture - the place where
the Glasgow Fair was held and where, now, the annual P eo p le’s Marathon
both starts and ends - as w ell as o f its socia list and fem inist p olitical cultures
(the place where G la sg o w ’s trade union m ovem ent began, w here suffrage
marches started from , where anti-conscription cam paigns were launched).
But it is perhaps m ost excep tional in the degree to w hich, as a m useum o f
the city’s history, it represents that history primarily in the form o f a set o f
deeply interacting relations b etw een, on the one hand, the w ays o f life and
Popular entertainments o f ordinary G lasw egian s and, on the other hand, their
Political traditions. Nor, moreover, is this done didactically by m eans, for
mstance, o f separate room s or d isplays devoted to the political history o f the
11У- Rather, and m ore often than not in an understated way, political
^ toons and concerns are injected into the very tissue o f everyday life, in
spheres o f work and leisure, by exh ib iting artefacts relating to political
Paigns side by side with those illustrating facets o f the history o f sport
e city or the developm ent o f different form s o f dom estic space.
IS in n fh p r u /n rrlc a o ltio r a ttp m n t fn o n n n o o t a \\ir x \r n f life» tn a \ \ i 'A V

125
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

political struggles. D isp lays o f old fashioned tobacconists and cinem a f0v
the history o f the local press; displays o f tenem ent interiors depicting ^
history o f housing con d ition s in the city; photographic displays o f 10^е
strikes from the 1920s to the 1980s; an exhibition o f local artists’ d e p ic t ^
o f the events, characters, and leaders o f the 1984 m iners’ strike- ^
suffragette playing cards; accounts o f the 1930s unem ploym ent rallies ^
by side with salutes to local soccer heroes; exh ib iting John M acLean’s d 6
in the sam e room as B illy C on n olly’s banana boots - the juxtaposition
these different histories in such a w ay that their associations are carried oy^f
into one another co n veys the su ggestion o f a radical political culture which
grow s out o f and, in turn, su ffuses the daily liv es o f ordinary Glaswegian
And o f a political culture, m oreover, w hich is - w ithin the ideologic^
econom y o f the m useum - the dominant one. At the P eo p le’s Palace, it is no(
‘the p e o p le ’ w ho are reduced to the lev el o f the picturesque. Rather, if ;s
ordinary G lasw egian s - their culture and their p olitics - w ho supply the norm
o f hum anity to w hich im plicitly the m useum addresses itself.

QUESTIO NS OF FR AM EW O R K

The developm ent o f m useum s in the nineteenth century was governed by the
view that it w ould be p ossib le to ach ieve ‘by the ordered display o f selected
artefacts a total representation o f human reality and h isto ry ’ (Donato 1979:
221). M useum s, that is to say, were to arrange their displays so as to simulate
the organization o f the world - human and natural - outside the museum
w alls. This dream that the rational ordering o f things m ight mirror the real
order o f things was soon revealed to be just that. Yet, both in the practices
o f m useum s and, as visitors, in our relations to them the illusion that they
deal in the ‘real stu ff o f h isto ry ’ persists. Few m useum s draw attention to the
assum ptions w hich have inform ed their ch o ice o f what to preserve or the
principles w hich govern the organization o f their exhibits. Few visitors have
the tim e or inclination to look beyond what m useum s show them to ponder
the sign ifican ce o f h ow they show what they show. Yet, as it has been my
t purpose to argue, this question o f ho w is a critical one, som etim es bearing
I m ore con seq u en tially on the visitor's exp erience than the actual objects
displayed.
Indeed, to em phasize this point: there is relatively little d ifference betweei'
the types o f objects d isplayed in the three m useum s I have considered, but
there is a world o f d ifferen ce betw een the rhetorics governing the processes
through w hich those objects have been assem bled into particular displa-'
configurations with, as I have sought to show, significant consequences f°r
the kinds o f id eological m eanings and associations lik ely to suggest them
selves. If this calls attention to the political significance o f the represent^
tional fram eworks m useum s em ploy, this is not to su ggest that there are ^
other aspects o f m useum s equally in need o f critical interrogation or that su
 M U S E U M S A N D ‘T H E P E O P L E ’

presentational issu es should be considered in isolation . It’s clear, for

f atnple ’ ^ at 4 uestion how things get displayed in m useum s cannot
eX jjv o rc e d from questions concerning the training o f curators or the
tfru i ures o f m useum control and m anagem ent - very m aterial constraints
S hjCh considerably lim it the room for m anoeuvre o f radical m useum workers.
' [however, these are not matters which can be readily influenced on a short­
en basis. Nor are they ones which it lies w ithin the v isito r’s pow er to do
|llUch about. But, if read in the right way - a s a lesson in ruling-class rhetoric
rather than as an object lesson in things - even the m ost con servatively
organized museum can be put to good use. An afternoon at Beam ish can be
most instructive provided that it is looked to less as providing a lesson in
industrial or regional history and more as a crash course in the bourgeois
myths o f history.

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 OUT OF W H IC H PAST?

P E R S P E C T IV E S ON T H E PAST

Th e past as text

In L a b y rin th s, Jorge Luis B orges im agin es a m odern writer, Pierre Menard

w ho sets out to write a few p ages w hich w ould co in cid e - word for word
and lin e for lin e - with som e p assa g es from C ervantes’ D o n Quixote
A sse ssin g the results o f this im aginary endeavour, B orges in sists that while
the tw o texts - M enard’s and C ervantes’ - m ay be verbally identical, their
m eanings are not the sam e. A lthough the sam e words are assem bled in the
sam e order, they could not help but co n v ey different m eanings by virtue of
the different circum stances in w hich they were written and thus the different
cultural h orizon s - those o f tw entieth -cen tury France and seventeenth-
century Spain - through w hich their sign ifican ce w ould be inflected. Above
all, B orges argues, M enard’s text w ould be richer than C ervantes’ - richer
I b ecau se m ore am biguous, and m ore am biguous because o f its status as a
I fa csim ile (B orges 1970: 69).
A fanciful case, no doubt, and one w hose bearing on questions o f museum
and heritage p olicy may not im m ediately be apparent. Yet what else do
practices o f historical restoration aspire to but the production o f a site - 3
building, say, or a township - w hich w ill coincide as clo sely as possible, brick
r for brick and paling for paling, with an earlier m odel? And how can the
outcom es o f such projects avoid m eaning differently from the originals to
w hich they aspire by virtue o f both the different histories which organize the111
and the am biguity o f their status as facsim iles? Take the post-war re­
construction o f the m edieval centre o f Warsaw. N o matter how close its
resem blance to the original, the restored city centre inevitably connotes ne"
m eanings in serving as a sym bol o f a political and national w ill to efface the
sign s o f the c ity ’s N azi occupation (Lowenthal 1985: 291). Or, to take acase
closer to hom e, consider the criticism s levelled against the restoration o f *0
Arthur. Jim A llen has argued that the reconstruction o f the buildings and lay °0^
o f the con vict period tends towards ‘the creation o f m oods o f “relaxation 311

128
 O U T OF W H IC H PAST?

(A llen 1976: 1 04-5). N ot only does this travesty the original

tran(?|-cance o f the penal colony, it further serves, A llen suggests, to occlude
s'?n| ss0ns which might otherw ise have been drawn from the site had its
tbe oration been allow ed to continue so that, precisely in its ruination, it
detejj have provided an eloquent testim ony to the failure o f the convict system .
* 011 might be thought that su ch exam p les echo too clo sely the nineteenth-
У debates o f ‘scrape versus anti-scrape’. 1 Yet the situation is the same
Ce where heritage p olicy aim s at preserving historic sites in their current
eVe0 retaining the marks which attest to their age and usage rather than
^ o V in g these to restore a site to its presum ed original conditions. For the
impje act o f extracting a site from a continuing history o f use and
development m eans that a frame is put around it, separating that site from
what it was prior to the m om ent o f its preservation. D edicated to a new use
as precisely, a historic site, it becom es a facsim ile o f what it on ce w as by
virtue of the frame - w hich may be as sim ple as a n otice or as elaborate as a
piece of legislation - w hich en closes it and separates it o ff from the present.
Not a thing may have been rem oved or rearranged. N one the less, the m eaning
is decisively altered. M uch the sam e is true o f objects placed in history
museums. A lthough, m aterially, these remain as they w ere, they b ecom e, on
the plane o f m eaning, facsim iles o f them selves. They announce a distance
between what they are a n aw K atth ey w ere through their very function, once
placed in a m useum , o f representing their ow n pastness and, thereby, a set o f
past social relations.2
All of this is to say no more than that the past, as it is m aterially em bodied
in museums and heritage sites, is inescapably a product o f the present which
organizes it: A truism, perhaps, but one w hose im plications are significant.
Consideration o f an analogous case m ay help identify these. In a recent essay,
Stephen Greenblatt notes that the entrance to Y osem ite N ational Park in
California is marked by a sign which establishes its status as a w ilderness zone.
Moreover, there are a number o f provisions within the Park itself - clim bing
ladders, view ing points, even photographs o f points o f interest - designed to
make the Park more accessible to the visitor, as w ell as notices sp ecifying
prohibited form s o f conduct. G reenblatt’s purpose in these observations is to
draw attention to the paradoxical nature o f the Park’s status as a w ilderness.
F°r if the Park, as w ilderness, seem s to be an instance o f Nature, pure and
undefiled, this is only because it is p u b lic ly d em a rca ted as such. It exists as
ature (and thus in a relationship o f im plied opposition to culture and
Clvilization) only because it is re p rese n te d as such. The paradox here is that
SUch representation is inevitably a product o f culture. A s Greenblatt puts it:

The w ilderness is at on ce secured and obliterated by the official gestures

that establish its boundaries: the natural is set over against the artificial
through m eans that render such an opposition m eaningless.
(Greenblatt 1987: 11)

1 29
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

The w ilderness, in bein g represented and marked o f f as the site o f an unspQ

Nature, is irretrievably marked by the sign s o f culture through the
p rocesses by m eans o f w hich rts ex isten ce as w ilderness is secured. No щ ц/
how strong the illusion to the contrary, therefore, what is encountered in St
publicly dem arcated w ilderness zon es is not Nature in its pristine purity*^ '
as the radical, untouched opposite o f culture, but the w ilderness as a text ц
do such zon es bear the marks o f culture m erely in the signs and facilities п,°Г
are installed in situ. They are affected by culture in a host o f more indir
w ays ranging from the legislative fram eworks and adm inistrative procedur^
necessary to establish and maintain their boundaries to the literature - Su^j
as tourist brochures and heritage publications - which organizes the frames of
reference and expectations o f their visitors.
Similarly, the past, as em bodied in historic sites and m useum s, while existing
in a frame which separates it from the present, is entirely the product of the
present practices which organize and maintain that frame. Its existence as ‘the
past’ is, accordingly, sim ilarly paradoxical. For that existence is secured only
through the form s in which ‘the past’ is p u b lic ly d em a rca ted and represented
as such, with the obvious consequence that it inevitably bears the cultural marks
o f the present from w hich it is purportedly distinguished. Just as the visitor to
a N ational Park encounters the w ilderness as a culturally organized text, so the
visitor to a m useum or historic site is confronted with a set o f textually
organized m eanings w hose determ inations must be sought in the present.
M y concern in this chapter is to exam ine som e o f the textual properties
inform ing the organization o f the Australian past as it is em bodied, in ways at
once material and sym bolic, in m useum s and historic sites. In doing so, I want
also to argue the relevance o f such considerations to the terms in which policy
options are posed, resolved and im plem ented. Indeed, I shall argue that many
o f the central objectives o f current m useum and heritage p olicy - particularly
those concerning questions o f access and participation - cannot be cogently
form ulated or pursued unless such considerations are taken into account. Nor
can the form s in w hich such p o licies are im plem ented be appropriately
7 assessed without considering the textual properties o f m useum and heritage
sites in relation to the varying historical cultures o f different social groups.
B efore com in g to such specific p o licy con cern s, however,, it will be
necessary to flesh out the terms o f the foregoing argument more fully anC*
outline its relevance to p olicy considerations in a m ore general way. A brief
review o f the history o f Australian m useum and heritage p olicy f o r m a t io n will
then be offered in order to place current p olicy concerns in an appropnate
context.

R ea d i n g the past: q ue sti ons o f t he ory and policy

The textual properties o f m useum s and historic sites are many and varied'
and com p lex in their interactions. Here, by way o f offering a prelim ina -

1 30
 O U T OF W H IC H PAST?

• fltion o f the scope o f the d iscu ssion , just a few m ight be m entioned. In
case o f m useum s, apart from the ob viou s sign ifican ce attaching to the
l^e nf the artefacts selected for display, there arises a further set o f
nature o.
tions relating to the principles governing the ways in w hich such artefacts
"related to one another w ithin particular display con texts. Are such
^tefaets classified and arranged by type or by period? Are they arranged as
o f a narrative, telling a story o f the relations betw een past and present?
Pf how are such narratives organized? D o they im ply a continuity betw een
and present? Or are past and present represented as radically dissim ilar?
similar questions arise, in the case o f historic sites, with regard to the ch oice
f the period to which a site is restored or, in the case o f preservation projects,
which its continued developm ent is arrested. Take the case o f the hom es
0f p r o m in e n t early settler fam ilies - V aucluse H ouse in Sydney, say, or
yfewstead H ouse in Brisbane. Are buildings and furnishings restored to the
founding years o f those fa m ilie s’ fortunes, or to the period o f their m ost
significant political and cultural influence? Then there is the question as to
how the artefacts w ithin such households should be arranged. What im plica­
tions do different arrangem ents have for the w ays in w hich the stories o f the
upstairs and downstairs m em bers o f such households are represented? And
how are these different m icro-narratives related to different ways o f co n ­
ceiving the broader political and cultural concerns o f the period?
If su ch considerations relate to the textual properties evident in the
artefactual structure o f m useum s and historic sites, further questions are
prompted b y the m ore o b viou sly textual form s w hich accom pany such
exhibits or w hich, in a m ore general sen se, organ ize and dem arcate the
cultural^ fram e-in w inch they are located. This refers us not m erely to the
captions, vid eos an d ta p e -1 ПТЙtrshfrw?rt h rou gh w inch artefactsare explained
and contextualized; it also concerns the functions o f guidebooks and sou ­
venirs. How do these organize the v isito r’s expectations and/or m em ory o f
his or her tour? What con ception s o f the public and o f its values are suggested
by the language and im agery o f such p ublications? 3 Sim ilar questions m ight
be asked o f the ‘buffer z o n e s’ o f historic sites - that is, those zon es w hich
regulate the v isito r’s entry to and exit from the dem arcated space o f the past.
Finally, account has also to be taken o f the broader range o f cultural texts
which, w hile not im pinging directly on any particular m useum or historic
Slte, n on e the less significantly influence the fram ework o f expectations and
P resu p p osition s governing the w ays in w hich different sections o f the public
relate to such institutions. T h e s e range from the official publications o f the
Ustralian H eritage C om m ission through the activities o f historical and
§e n e a lo g ic a l so cieties to the kinds o f historical representations put into
eneral social circulation by the m edia in such form s as television m ini-series.
betIn reading the past’ as it is currently shaped and organized in the relations
Ween these different practices, m y purpose is to illustrate their con-
"Uences for the w ays in which the so cia lly dem arcated zone o f ‘the past’

131
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

is experienced and interpreted. This d oes not m ean, in the case o f partic^
museum displays or historic sites, callin g them to task for their failure ?
accurately portray the past ‘qs it really w a s’. This is not to m in im ize•«
the
im portance o f the curatorial concern to regulate historical displays t,
I
ensuring the authenticity o f the m aterials exh'bited. Rather, it is merely tУ
D
note that, w hen such work is done, there unavoidably rem ains a host
Of*
detailed and separate questions regarding the r e p re se n ta tio n a l effec ts of ц,
considerations outlined above. — -— -------
In an exam ination o f sim ilar issues in the British context, M ichael Вощще$
and Patrick Wright have proposed the useful term p u b lic historical sphere’
to refer to those institutions - from m useum s through national heritage sites
to television historical dramas and docum entaries - involved in producing
and circulating m eanings about the past. The practices o f such institutions
they argue, need to be considered in their role in enacting ‘a publicly
instituted structuring o f co n sc io u sn e ss’ (B om m es and Wright 1982: 266) ■
Elaborating this argum ent in a subsequent study, W right, considering the
effects o f different w ays o f representing the past, contends that ‘the historio­
graphic question o f their truth or falsity is often peripheral to their practical
appropriation in everyday lif e ’ (W right 1985: 188). Sim ilarly, the position
adopted here is not that the effects o f such practices o f representation might
be adjudicated by referring them to ‘the truth o f the past’. Rather, understand­
ing w h a t and h ow m useum s and historic sites m ea n depends on assessing their
relations to, and placem ent within, a w hole repertoire o f textual conventions
through which the socially dem arcated zone o f the past is made to connect
with contem porary social, cultural and political preoccupations.
There can be few m om ents more tim ely than the present in which to raise
such issues. Compared with earlier and prolonged periods o f relative neglect,
the period since the early 1970s has w itnessed a Hood o f inquiries and policy
initiatives in the m useum and heritage areas. A s a consequence, the Aus­
tralian past, or public historical sphere, has expanded dramatically in
quantitative terms w hile, at the sam e tim e, its sign ifyin g contours, or textual
properties, have been significantly reshaped. Yet, excep t for the considesation
given to questions concerning the appropriate representational contexts for
the display o f A boriginal m aterials, m ost o f the major governm ental docu­
m ents bearing on the recent developm ent o f m useum and heritage policies
have paid scant attention to the question o f representational contexts and
p rinciples appropriate to the realization o f sp ecified p o licy objectives-
Unsurprisingly, governm ental attention has rather focu sed on the develop­
ment o f adm inistrative arrangem ents appropriate to the developm ent and
m anagem ent o f an extended public historical sphere. W here questions
concerning the nature o f the past to be constructed within museums an
historic sites have arisen, these have largely taken the form o f a concern wi_
content - that is, w ith what should be preserved and exhibited. The same Js
true o f m ost su bm issions to the policy-m aking process and, with nota
 O U T O F W H I C H P A M .'

p tio n s (A llen 1976; B ickford 1982, 1985), o f critical com m entaries on

e*1 ^useum and heritage sites - which have been relatively few and far
m
‘ anyway. W hile such con sid erations are o b v io u sly important

L
■ $ ed t^e s ' ne Qua n on -°^ Р °НсУ form ation - it is not the case, on ce
in1 patters have been decided, that q uestions o f representation can be left
'cni jcCh nt113
^ ^ e iL , • - J i----- --------- i------------------------------ _ _
fen d for them selves. S in ce m useum and heritage p o licies have as their
tual aim and outcom e a regulated set o f encounters betw een visitors
even
different cultural backgrounds and orientations) and textually organ-
(with
, museum displays or historic sites, it is appropriate that p olicy should be
1 ujjeCj by an awareness o f the factors w hich influence and regulate the nature
f the m eanings transacted in those encounters.

T h o u g h ts ou t o f season

In addition to arguing the p olicy relevance o f such considerations, however,

I want aiso to offer a critical p ersp ective on som e o f the predom inant
te n d e n c ie s discernible in the recent form ation o f an expanded A ustralian
public historical sphere. Apart from enlarging the past in the sen se o f
s ig n ific a n tly increasing the number o f sites w hich are p ublicly dem arcated
as historical, this process has exh ib ited , in the m ain, three clo sely related
textual characteristics. First, the A ustralian past has b ecom e m ore auto­
nomous and self-referring; in brief, m ore A ustralianized as even ts in
Australian history tend in creasingly to be referred to one another rather than,
as had previously been the case, finding their points o f reference in earlier
or contemporary m om ents in European, and esp ecia lly British, history. In
this respect, the Australian past has, so to speak, been cut o f f from its
prehistory and set o f f on its ow n, self-su pp ortin g course. Second, this n ew ly
autonomized past has been con sid erably elongated , pushed further and
further back into deeper indigenous tim es (as distinct from tim es derived
from European history) so as to su ggest a sense o f long continuity for the
history o f the nation. Finally, this past has tended to b ecom e ever more
inclusive in its orientation, en folding into its ow n history the h istories o f
groups and com m unities w hich had p reviously received little recognition in
officially sanctioned version s o f Australian history.,T h us, the h istories o f
Australian w om en, o f Greek, Italian and A sian com m un ities, and o f course
°f Aborigines: all o f these are now represented in the m aterialized pasts
embodied in historic sites and m useum displays.
So far as one can tell, these tendencies have been broadly supported by
m°st groups within the com m unity. There have, it is true, been signs o f an old-
§uard resistance at the A ustralian War M em orial, and proposals for the
Preservation o f specific historical sites have often incurred the opposition o f
Property developers. Q uestions concerning the administration o f Aboriginal
Sltes and artefacts also remain intractably con ten tiou s. W hen all that is
though, the claim made by Lord Chartis o f A m isfield in the British

133
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

con text - that the preservation o f national heritage is a relatively

contentious issue because all parties and publics support it - is la r g e ly 11
in Australia too (Chartis 1984: 326). Ь 'rue
C ertainly, I have no w ish to introduce a note o f contention into
relatively acquiescent clim ate just for the sake o f it. V iew ed abstractly m
o f the tendencies I have identified are to be w elcom ed. The developm ent^
a more broad-ranging and in clu sive scop e for the Australian past - as real'
in the focu s on the everyday working liv e s and cultures o f different clasSe
genders and ethnic com m unities at H yde Park Barracks, for exam ple - •’
unquestionably a change for the better. The p ositive consequences of sUc'^
developm ents for the m em bers o f hitherto m arginalized groups - the positiv
sense o f self-recogn ition , o f bein g th e re , accorded a place within the national
past - should not be underestim ated. Yet it ’s the contradictory aspects of
these tendencies I want to dw ell on here, for what sounds fine in principle
often turns out to be m ore problem atic w hen translated into a concrete
representational context.
R oughly a hundred years ago, Friedrich N ietzsch e, perhaps one o f the most
acerbic critics o f nineteenth-century historical con sciou sn ess, and particu­
larly o f the tendency to m onum entalize national histories in public statuary,
recogn ized that his resistance to history w as ‘out o f sea so n ’. ‘T hese thoughts’,
he wrote in his essay T he U se a n d A b u se o f H isto ry, ‘are “ out o f season,”
because I am trying to represent som ething o f w hich the age is rightly proud
- its historical culture - as a fault and a d efect in our tim e, believing as I do
that w e are all suffering from a^m alignant h istorical fever and should at least
recogn ise the fact’ (N ietzsch e 1974: 4 ). W hile not goin g so far as Nietzsche
in his .intransigent opposition to virtually any kind o f historicization o f social,
life, these reflections on Australian m useum and heritage p olicy are similarly
‘out o f season ’ in querying the effects o f the w ays in w hich the publicly
dem arcated space offhe-A ustralian past is currently being reshaped. They are
offered, however, in the'conviction that that past is still m alleable enough to
be responsive to debates concerning its present contours and future trajectory.
This p ossib ility is not given to the sam e degree where such pasj^ have a
longer history and, thus, more accum ulated w eigh t behind them. In Britain,
w here protective le g islation now covers som e h a lf a m illion historic struc­
tures, accounting for 4 per cent o f the nation’s h ousin g stock, the past is
often felt as a petrified, frozen and im m ob ile zon e w hich functions as a
counterw eight to the p o ssib ility o f im agining new paths o f national develop­
m ent excep t those - lik e Mrs Thatcher’s fond ness for the virtues of Ле
V ictorian period - w hich em body a return to the^b erish ed values o f the paSt’
‘In its stately con n ection ,’ Patrick W right w rites o f the past em bodied in
E n glan d ’s stately hom es, ‘history becom es “ tim e le ss” when it has bee11
frozen solid , closed dow n and lim ited to what can be exhibited as a tu^
accom p lish ed “ historical p ast” w hich dem ands on ly appreciation a
protection’ (W right 1985: 78). W hile in Australia the past is not - nor doe
 OU T OF W H IC H PAST?

I t p r e t e n d to be - stately, it is accum ulating at an unprecedented rate.

^ " many o f the tendencies which define this past are checked, there are
'J11 that it. too. w ill com e to c lo se in on itself, and on us, in inviting

THE F O R M A T IO N OF AN A U S T R A L I A N PAST:
C O N TO U R S OF A HISTORY

Th e national past as a vacu u m

In 1933, the M useum s A ssociation o f London published A R e p o rt on the

Museums a n d A r t G a lle rie s o f A u stra lia . C om m issioned by the C arnegie
Corporation o f N ew York and prepared by two British m u seologists, S.F.
Markham and H.C. Richards, the report painted a fairly damning picture o f
the state o f Australian m useum s. P oorly funded in com parison with their
European, American and even N ew Zealand counterparts, their growth, it was
argued, had been m ostlyJiaphazard, driven more by inter-state rivalries than
by any consideration o f providing a national m useum service. So far as the
contents o f m useum co llectio n s were concerned, Markham and Richards
expressed surprise at the alm ost total lack o f interest in either co llectin g or
exhibiting historical m aterials. Apart from the Australian War M em orial
(then merely a collection o f artefacts w hich had yet to find a perm anent
home), only tw o m useum s w ere devoted to historical exhibits: V aucluse
House in Sydney and th e historical co llec tio n s housed in the P&diament
Buildings at Canberra. O utside o f these, the only period room in the w hole
of Australia w as the exh ib ition o f nineteenth-century furniture at the M el­
bourne Art Gallery. IJ this general n eg lect was cause for surprise, Markham
and Richards found even more remarkable the lack o f any developed concern
with materials relating to the post-settlem ent period. T hey thus noted that ‘in
no museum are there reproductions o f the buildings occupied by the earlier
settlers’, regarding this as ‘one o f the m ost notable gaps in the w hole o f the
lis tin g museum c o lle c tio n s’ (Markham and Richards 1933: 441).
W hy should this have been so? In part, ио doubt, because m useum curators
ad b een recruited m ainly from the d iscip lin es o f g eo lo g y and b io lo g y (and,
ln the twentieth century, occasion ally from anthropology) and did not include
S|ngle historian. Yet this is m erely to re-state the problem: for w hy should
stralian m useum s have displayed this particular bias? A fter all, as Sally
hlstedt has show n, by the late nineteenth century Australia had developed
^ range o f m useum s w hich, in their d isciplinary am bit, paralleled their
lQs°^ean anc* Am erican counterparts in all but this one respect (K ohlstedt
•u- If geology, biology, anthropology, scien ce and techn ology and, in the
 POLICIES AND POLITICS
I

M acleay M useum at the U niversity o f Sydney, archaeology had all

tributed significantly to the collectin g interests o f Australian museums C011'
not history? The m odels were there, for the use o f m useum s as a m ea'n ^
representing and em bodying national histories had been known in Eu °f
from as early as the m id-eighteenth century and becam e increasingly prorly^
ent after the French R evolution .4 W hy were they not used?
The question has a more general reference, for the absence o f a devel
°Ped
interest in the history o f the post-settlem ent period was not limited to
m useum world. It was thus not until after the First World War that Austr г6
could lay claim to even a rudimentarily developed public historical sphere"*
One o f the more important com ponents in the public historical spheres of
European societies consisted in the developm ent o f public statuary. Whereas
in the eighteenth century, sculptural m em orials had tended to be limited to the
private chapels or hom es and gardens o f the aristocracy, the early nineteenth
century w itnessed the transformation o f such m em orials into objects, as Mace
puts it, o f ‘public display, often financed by the Governm ent, with a direct
didactic purpose’ (M ace 1976: 49). The construction o f the N apoleon column
in the Place Vendom e and o f N elson ’s Column in Trafalgar Square - mirrored
throughout Europe’s tow ns and cities, in the construction of.memorials
com m em orating the deeds o f m ilitary heroes and statesm en, o f kings and
queens - thus constituted'a use o f public space for a new representational
purpose: that o f m aterially em bodying a sense o f national history. Yet this
tendency - which, in France, was to assum e the proportions o f what Hobsbawm
has dubbed a/tide o f ‘statuom ania’ - had relatively few echoes in Australia
(H obsbaw m 1983). A s K.S. Inglis has noted, cam paigns to erect public
m onuments com m em orating the achievem ents o f prominent Australians were
few and far between, often fading to recruit governm ent support or sufficient
private patronage to be viable or, where they were successful in this, enlisting
little popular enthusiasm when built (Inglis 1974: Ch. 15).
A nd so one could go on. By the late nineteenth century, in m ost European
so c ieties and in the U nited States, influential preservationist lobbies had
produced rudimentary form s o f heritage legislation and provided the basis
for heritage organizations capable o f co-ordinating cam paigns for the preser­
vation o f historic sites, and o f adm inistering those sites, at a national level-
In Australia, such developm ents b elon g to the period after the Second World
War - and, even then, they cam e later rather than sooner. W hereas, in Britarn>
the National Trust was established in 1895, a sim ilar national organization
did not ex ist here until the establishm ent o f the Australian Council о
National Trusts in 1965.
How are these patterns o f Australian excep tionalism to be a c c o u n t e d f ° r-
W hile there has been no shortage o f explanations, few go to the roots ot l^c
matter. It was c o m m o n , in the 1880s and 1890s, for social c o m m e n t a t o r s ^
argue that there w as little or no history in Australia worthy o f p r e s e r v in g
com m em orating. In this account, the failure to d evelop a set o f in stitu tr

136
 O U T O F W H IC H P A S T ?

Г in
rePr
jjjch conceptions o f a national past m ight be m aterially em bodied and
ented is attributed to the shortcom ings inherent w ithin the real stu ff o f
дивиайап history is, so to speak, indicted for its failure to supply an
h'st 0prjate set o f raw m aterials - events, characters and m ovem ents - out o f
apP , a national past m ight have been fashioned.
" тие inadequacy o f such accounts is clear. For it is precisely those raw
rials, overlooked at the tim e, w hich have sin ce com e to supply the
nl3|nstay o f the form s in w hich the Australian past is stylized and represented,
"why f ° r exam P ^ ’’ Isabel M cBryde asks, ‘does Australia now have a w ell-
ublic*sec* convict past, yet a century ago found this past too sen sitive for
P .ar appeal?’ (M cB ryde 1985: 8 -9 ). The considerations such questions
nt us to concern not the real nature o f historical events but their relations
the forms that are available for their representation. In the case o f late-
nineteenth-century Australia, they refer us to what w as clearly perceived as
a lack o f fit betw een the raw m aterials o f post-settlem ent history and the
rhetorics governing the form s in w hich national pasts could fittingly be
r e p r e s e n te d . What was lacking, in other words, was not real historical events
but a mould through which such events m ight be cast into representations that
would be consistent with the largely Eurocentric lexicon s o f nationalism and
history which governed public perceptions o f such matters.
Had developm ents in Scandinavian or even Am erican m useum and heritage
policy been more influential the story m ight have been different, for both
Scandinavia (by the end o f the nineteenth century) and Am erica (by the
1920s) had developed preservationist p h ilosop h ies in w hich folk culture
materials were accorded a historical significance. It w as, however, the British
past which, for the greater part, supplied the m odel, stated or im plied, in
relation to which the representational p o ssib ilities o f Australian history were
judged and, usually, found wanting. Perhaps the m ost important factor in this
respect consisted in the fact that the British past was largely shaped through
the commemoration o f the m ilitary exp loits o f Empire, a tendency that was
equally strong in France. This was perhaps the greatest im pedim ent to the
formation o f an Australian past. The fact, as it w as often expressecTat the
’'me, that the Australian nation had not been forged in war - that it had not
Played any major role in the theatres o f ‘real h istory’ - meant that it could
not lay claim to a past w hich m ight be represented on the sam e footin g as the
Pasts of other nations w ithin the m ilitarized m odes o f national co m ­
memoration which were dominant at the time. It was m ainly for this reason
• a tme post-settlem ent period, when view ed from the com parative perspect-
e °f European national pasts, was regarded as a vacuum - or, if not as a
theUUtT1’ 3S 3 Per'oc^ w fi°se events and figures often proved difficult to use in
in str u c tio n o f an autonom ized national past o w in g to their prior
eiation with the longer history o f the British state. Thus, a s.In g lis
°r ts’ Proposals to erect com m em orative statues to the m aritime explorers
0 file co lo n ie s’ early statesm en often cam e to nought becauseTsuch figures

137

I
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

were too strongly associated with either A ustralia’s prehistory or the

tinuing history o f Britain. A s a con seq u en ce o f these two pressures C°n'
tendencies as there were to organize a space o f national-historical repres ^
tions were caught in som ething o f a double bind: the events and figure1113
the post-settlem ent period either lacked sufficient representational wei ^
support an Australian past which m ight take its place among other n a ti0 l°
pasts or, if w eighty enough, were not able to be represented as suffic; Па'
or uniquely Australian. У
V iew ed in this light, the sign ifican ce o f G allipoli ‘as a s y m b o l of
nation’s entrance into Real H istory’ (R oss 1985: 15) consisted in its function6
ing as a marker o f a set o f historical events w hich could be fashioned int0
national past in the terms o f the then current lexicon o f nationalism. While
the primary site o f this fashioning was the Australian War Memorial, it would
be m istaken to view the M em orial’s developm ent as an isolated phenomenon
First p jp p led jn 1917 and finally opened in 1941, the period o f the Memorial’s
construction coincided with a more w idespread renovation and restructuring
o f the Australian public historical sphere. A s the first specifically cultural
institution planned for the federal capital, the M em orial was both conceived
and cam e to function as a central, co-ordinating point o f reference for the
cou n tless m em orials - statues, public baths, m ausoleum s - to the war-dead
that were erected throughout the length and breadth o f Australia over the
sam e period.6 T hese shrines, how ever local the im petus behind them may
originally have been, w ere irretrievably nationalized once the Memorial was
opened. They could not help bufpoTnt to Canberra - rather than to the state
capitals — as the ,ap e x o f the nation’s self-m em orialization. In this respect,
the War M em orial functioned as a crucial instrum ent o f federation, em­
bodying a national past con ceived on a m acro-scale which not merely
superseded the m icro-pasts o f the different regions and states but provided a
point of'articu lation to w hich those pasts could be connected. While the
details o f the M em orial’s history testify to the d elicacy with which the prior
and frequently stronger state-based lo y a lties and identities were negotiated,
there is little doubt that the M em orial eventually succeeded in effecting a
national overdeterm ination o f the m eaning o f local and state memorials and
war shrines.
In com m em orating the deeds o f the AIF and other serv ices, the War
M em orial thus fashioned a national past that could jostle for elbow rooni
within the representational space produced by other national pasts, that cou
com pete with them on the same terrain. Yet the discursive shaping o f the pasl
em bodied in the M em orial was by no m eans m erely derivative. On the
contrary, the M em orial significantly transformed the lexicon o f public m° ^
o f com m em oration and rem em brance in celebrating the heroism of 1
ordinary soldier rather than, as Bazin show s w as the case in n*neteenoll
century Europe (except for revolutionary France), focusing exclusively ^
the exp loits o f m ilitary leaders (B azin 1967). In truth, this innovation

138
 O U T OF W H IC H PAST?

distinctively Australian as is often suggested. Sim ilar tendencies were

not nt in Europe as the need to recruit the support o f a dem ocratic citizenry
eVl ted the developm ent o f more dem otic m odes o f public rem em brance.
Pr° nl^ver, m any o f the them es Bean claim ed as original had been publicly
M°H within the British m useum profession in the course o f the war.8 N one
a're)eSSj the War M em orial gen u inely did go further than its European
tl,£ terp a rts in the respect that a dem otic rhetoric provides the governing
C° Ucinle ° f *ts displays rather than being present m erely interstitially. It is
Pr in the dioramas; in the listin g o f nam es alphabetically, without
there 11
stinCti°n o f rank, in the Roll o f Honour; and, o f course, in the celebration
f the heroism o f the digger and the display o f the incidental aspects o f daily
life in the trenches - the im provised cricket bats and bookm akers’ plates
through which life was norm alized and made bearable.
It is, moreover, the centrality accorded this dem otic rhetoric that accounts
for the War M em orial’s id eo lo g ica l potency. For if, on the one hand, the
focus on war enabled a fled glin g Australian past to be both connected to and
to vie with the deeper, m ore d eveloped pasts o f Europe, the fact that the
M em orial’s com m em oration centred on the ordinary sold ier allo w ed more
popular and dem ocratic con ception s o f the Australian character to be grafted
on to the inherited Eurocentric m odes o f stylizin g and representing national
pasts. The key d evelopm ent here, o f cou rse, con sisted in the transform ation
of the signifying currency o f the digger as the characteristics o f self-relian ce
and anti-authoritarianism w ere shorn o f their late-nineteenth-century radical
nationalist associations and connected to a h ighly con servative set o f values
and id e o lo g ie s under B ean ’s presiding g en iu s.9 This is esp ecia lly clear in
the Hall o f M em ory, w here the q ualities o f the digger, shorn o f any specific
class associations, are represented as a set o f trans-class, ahistorical and
essentialist national virtues: com radeship, chivalry, loyalty, in dependence,
coolness, and so on.
If, then, the War M em orial m ust be assessed as the first significant attempt
to m a teria lize an Australian past, this w as at the price o f a highly conservative
'a lth o u g h , to its founders’ credit, not m ilitaristic - con ception o f the nation.
Nor, v ie w e d from more recent perspectives, are these the only lim itations o f
'he M em o r ia l. Its conception o f the past is ex c essiv ely m asculinist; w om en
hardly figu re at all (the stained glass w in dow s in the Hall o f M em ory include
°ne w om an - a nurse - am ong fourteen m en) and, w hen they do, it is usually
to their capacity as auxiliaries to what is portrayed as the essen tially male
stn ess o f war. 10 Yet gender-bias is not the only point at issue here. There
^ e>after all, many m useum s o f war in w hich, where significance is accorded
str u g g le s on the hom e front, representations o f w om en figure significantly.
e e d, there is now a sm all corner o f the M emorial devoted to the hom e
nT but this is really quite gestural com pared, for exam ple, with the
the accorded this them e in the Imperial War M useum . In this respect,
relative absence o f w om en points to another, and arguably more central

139
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

contradiction in the M em orial’s discourse: the fact that, although r'

regarded as the first m useum o f Australian history, Australia itself is virt ^
entirely absent. For a founding national institution, the nation is curioUs| ^
centred in the M em orial in the sense that its major references are constg ^
to A ustralia’s participation in a history taking place elsew h ere - in ри П'^
and the M iddle East. T hese are still, in the M em orial’s conception, the
o f ‘real h isto ry ’ w hile - excep t in so far as they relate to A u str i°*S
participation in this wider history - references to contem porary events w' r-S
Australia are alm ost entirely lacking. Thus, if the form s and terms in whj"1
w om en have been m obilized in support o f A ustralia’s war efforts are
scant attention, the sam e is true o f the role played by men outside the arme'*
forces. This predom inance o f an externally oriented frame o f reference, allie(]
with the M em orial’s gender bias, accounts for the m ost obvious limitation
its dem otic rhetoric: the people and the sold iery are, in effect, equated.
The point I m ost want to stress, however, is the degree to which, in the
M em orial, Australia remains evacuated o f any historical significance of its
ow n. The nation, so to speak, is historicized only by proxy, only to the degree
that it takes a part in and joins the longer and deeper histories o f Europe. In
these respects, the discourse o f the M em orial is still colonial or only proto­
nationalist. The past w hich it em bodies and figures forth lacks any decisive
autonomy. Rather, it is a past w hich refers itself to, and seeks anchorage and
support in, the deeper pasts o f Europe. This colonial discourse is evident in
the M em orial in many ways: in the references to European traditions in the
H all o f M em ory; 11 in the references to Europe in the M em orial’s second centre
o f solem nity - the room housing W illiam L o n g sta ff’s M en in G ate a t Midnight
(a m em orial to soldiers o f Britain and the Empire killed at Ypres) and The
Im m o rta l S h rin e (the Cenotaph in London) ; 12 and the Empire-centred con­
ception o f the world governing the entry court which, naming all the places
in the world where Australian troops have fought, just m anages to squeeze in
A ustralia betw een Java and the Coral Sea. And, above all perhaps, it is evident
in the bitter struggle that was w aged to obtain the Shellal M osaic so that
A ustralia m ight claim its ow n p iece o f im perialist plunder and root itself m
deep tim e by boasting p ossession o f a p iece o f antiquity. 13 In these respects,
the visitor to the M em orial is caught up in a discourse w hich constantly refers
him /her elsew h ere, to experience a national history which is always hitched
on to another, w ider history on which it is dependent for its validation.
In these w ays, the M emorial inscribes the visitor within a c o n c e p t io n o f the
nation which rem ains subjected to the dom inating look o f the m e t r o p o l i s 1
pow ers. Bean w as alw ays quite clear that, apart from show ing t h e n ation
itself, the M em orial was intended to exhibit Australia to the world - that
to Europe. ‘We p lann ed ’, as he put it, ‘that, just as one had to go t o F lore
or Dresden to see the finest picture-galleries, so people w ould have to с
to Australia to see the finest war m em orial’ (cited in Inglis 1985: 101)-1° . |
solicitin g the gaze o f Europe, the M em orial remains partly within the co l°n

1 40
 O U T OF W H IC H PAST?

E, cep1'0115 vv*1'c^1 framecl the first call, in 1828, for the establishm ent o f an
C°Jstralian m useum to
j. that Australia is not occupied by a handful o f felo n s or a few poor
l e e d y adventurers, anxious only for the accum ulation o f w ealth, but
that the seeds o f a great Nation are sow n and are even now beginning
fructify - that a national feelin g is springing up - that a fifth continent
;s gradually but rapidly advancing to the lists as a com petitor in the race
for honour and for fam e . . .
(Anon 1828: 62)

A u t o n o m i z i n g the Aust ralian past

The modern state, N icos Poulantzas has argued, establishes a unique rela­
tionship between tim e and space, betw een history and territory, in organizing
the u n ity o f the nation in the form o f a ‘h is to r ic ity o f a te r r ito r y a n d
territorialisation o f a h is to r y ' (Poulantzas 1980: 114). B enedict Anderson
makes a sim ilar point w hen he contrasts the spatio-tem poral m atrices o f the
modern nation-state with those o f dynastic realm s or religious com m unities
(Anderson 1983: 31). For the unifying traditions w hich characterize the latter,
A nderson. argues, are neither bound to a particular territory nor esp ecially
historical to the degree that they evok e a world o f eternal perm anences. The
unity o f a nation, by contrast, is alw ays con ceived as more lim ited in scope,
the unity o f a people w ho share the sam e space and tim e, the occupants o f a
territory which has been historicized and the subjects o f a history w hich has
been territorialized. But o f a history w hich is made rather than g iven , which
is the result o f an active process o f organization through w hich other histories
- other p ossible fram ew orks for organizing events into sequ en ces and
interpreting their sign ifican ce - are either elim inated or annexed to and
inscribed within the unfolding unity o f the nation’s developm ent.
The state, Poulantzas su ggests, p lays a critical role in this process o f
nationing history w hile sim ultaneously h istoricizing the nation. It d oes so by
concentrating w ithin itse lf the unity o f those m om ents w hich constitute the
nation’s history, sp ecifyin g the direction o f their sequence and prophesying
their future trajectory.

The State realises a m ovem ent o f individualisation and unification;

constitutes the people-nation in the further sense o f representing its
historical orientation; and assign s a goal to it, marking out what
becomes a path. In this oriented historicity without a fixed lim it, the
State represents an eternity that it produces by self-generation. It
0rganises the forward course o f the nation and thus tends to m onop olise
[he national tradition by m aking it the moment o f a becom ing designated
У ttself, and by storing up the m em ory o f the people-nation.
(Poulantzas 1980: 113)

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 POLICIES AND POLITICS

T hese p erspectives throw a useful light on the d evelopm ent o f post­

m useum an,d heritage p olicies. For there are few areas o f p olicy f o r r n a ti0 ri5t
w hich the state can play so direct and leading a role in organizing the tin,'"'
space co-ordinates o f the nation. And there are few institutions, corr*"
pondingly, which can rival the authority invested in those constructions^
the nation’s past and projections o f its future destiny w hich are e m b o d ie d
m useum s and national heritage sites. It is not surprising, therefore, that the"1
should have been perceived as potentially powerful cultural technologies ^
nationing in the con text o f the broader post-w ar p olitical and cultural
initiatives to produce a post-colonial national culture and identity. Compared
with the relatively a d h o c developm ent o f m useum s and related institutions
over the preceding century, the last three decades have w itnessed the
em ergence o f m useum and heritage questions as objects o f major govern
mental attention, esp ecia lly at the federal level. In con sequ en ce o f a rush of
governm ental inquiries and a flurry o f leg isla tiv e initiatives, the size and
scope o f the national past have been vastly extended w hile its discursive
properties have been significantly reorganized.
The sin gle m ost important developm ent, in this latter respect, has consisted
in the production o f a m ore clearly and m ore com p letely autonomized
national past. This has entailed the organization o f a new discursive space
for the tim e -sp a c e co-ordinates o f the nation, on es w hich sever its de­
pendency on those o f Europe and allow it to em erge as a free-standing entity
rooted in its ow n past. M oreover, this has been accom plished by precisely
the m eans both Poulantzas and A nderson suggest. The historicization of a
territory and the territorialization o f history; the subjection o f other histories
(o f A borigin es, o f im m igrant com m un ities, o f A ustralia’s Europe'an pre­
history) into the story o f the nation’s unfolding unity; the back-projection of
. the nation’s history into the deeper history o f the land and o f nature so that
it seem s to ‘loom out o f an im m em orial past’ (A nderson 1983: 19) - these
are am ong the dom inant tropes o f the national past as it is currently being
fashioned.
The political im petus for these developm ents derived from the Whitlam
governm ents o f 1 9 7 2 -4 and 1 9 7 4 - 5 .14 Shortly after its election in D ecem b er
1972 the first W hitlam governm ent appointed the Hope C om m ittee to inquire
into the establishm ent o f a N ational Estate. A lthough the Hope C om m ittee
subm itted its report in the m idst o f the 1974 electio n , the g o v e r n m e n t
com m itted itse lf to its findings and, in its second term, appointed an Interim
C om m ittee on the N ational Estate (M ay, 1975) to prepare a National Heritage
P olicy to be adm inistered by a perm anent H eritage C om m ission. The
Australian Heritage B ill was passed a year later, vestin g the D e p a r tm e n t о
Urban and R egional D evelopm ent and the Departm ent o f the E n v i r o n m e n t
with join t resp onsibility for adm inistering the N ational Estate. It a's°
established the H eritage C om m ission to serve in a permanent advts ^
capacity to these departm ents and charged it w ith the responsibility
 OUT OF WHICH PAST?

. „ up a R egister o f the National Estate. A lthough the Fraser governm ent

dra ]Uently reduced the scop e o f the H eritage B ill and cut the funding
lable to the National Estate, this w ork continued and, in 1977, the first
aVa'- ,Pr o f the National Estate was published. In the interim, the Pigott
gegister _ , --------------------------------------------
fuittee had been established in 1 9 7 4 to inquire into m useum s and national
C0111 t jo n s . On reporting, in 1 9 7 5 , the C om m ittee recom m ended the estab-
C° ment o f a M useum o f Australia su ggestin g that a G allery o f Aboriginal
'lS tralia be incorporated w ithin the M useum as one o f its three main
A1** 15
„alleries-
These two inquiries constituted a distinct turning point in the developm ent
f federal policy in sign alling a clear com m itm ent to the production o f a more
° trally co-ordinated national past. 16 Yet they should not be v iew ed in
■olation from the more w idespread initiatives to w hich, in part, they were a
response and w hich, in turn, they prom pted and encouraged. The Pigott
Com m ittee, w hile chastizing the major m useum s for their continuing lack o f
interest in Australian history ( ‘only five institutions across the con tinent’, it
noted, ‘have curators for w hom the title “ o f h isto ry ” is appropriate’)
(Museums in A u stra lia 1975: para.4.27), sung the praises o f the local m useum
movement:

In the last fifteen years hundreds o f sm all m useum s have been founded
as a result o f the quickening interest in Australian history. This has been
primarily a grass-roots m ovem ent, one o f the m ost unexpected and
vigorous cultural m ovem ents in Australia in this century.
(M u se u m s in A u stra lia 1 9 7 5 : p a r a . 5 . 8 )

The 1960s also w itnessed an increase in the m em bership o f conservation

societies and historical so cieties - a trend w hich continued in the 1970s - as
well as the em ergence o f national organizations, m ost notably the Australian
Council o f N ational Trusts in 1 9 6 5 .17 Rather m ore important, at least in terms
°f political sym bolism , were the green bans and related cam paigns o f the
early 1970s (N ittim 1980). In dem onstrating the degree to w hich the
Preservation o f both the natural and h istoric environm ent had recruited
broadly based popular support, these allow ed the issue o f preservation to be
c°nnected to the ‘new n ation alism ’ o f the W hitlam adm inistrations w hich
Were thus able to present their environm ental p olicies as representing the
6xPressed w ish es o f the people against the self-interested actions o f local
S|ness elites, m ultinational corporations and, w here appropriate, state
^°Vernments. This rhetoric o f ‘the people versus the d evelop ers’ w as most
ectively v oiced by Tom Uren, the M inister for Urban and R egional
^evelopment. When tabling the report o f the Hope C om m ittee before the
° Use of R epresentatives, Uren noted with approval the C om m ittee’s diag-
the'S ^ at uncontro^ec* developm ent, econ om ic growth and “ progress”, and
for enc° Ura8em ent ° f private as against public interest’ had been responsible
r *he degradation o f the N ational Estate. He then went on to state:

143

i
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

A p leasing feature o f the report is its rejection o f the w id ely held n o ti 0

that conservation and preservation o f the environm ent are a midd] П
class issue. The C om m ittee affirm s this is just not true and that
preserving the N ational Estate concerns us all. It shatters once and f0
all the illusion that the national estate is the preserve o f the better-off
m em bers o f the com m unity. The forces which threaten our National
Estate often bear m ost heavily on the less privileged. Poorer p eo p ie
su ffer more in tensely from the lo ss o f parkland, fam iliar city and
country scapes, and even d w ellin gs. D eprived com m unity groups have
not the sam e a ccess as the w ealthy to other sources o f personal
enjoym ent and fulfilm ent. That is w hy it is often the less affluent who
are m ost active in working to protect the best features o f our heritage
That is w hy the trade union m ovem ent has been active in trying t0
protect and enhance our N ational E state. 18

The results o f this marked increase in governm ental concern with m useum s
- and sp ecifically with historical m useum s - and the preservation o f historic
sites are, by now, readily apparent. The Australian public historical sphere
has been significantly augm ented ow in g to the enorm ous increase in the
number and range o f institutions w hich have been extracted from the flow of
the present and grouped together w ithin an o fficia lly demarcated zone of the
past w hich, in its turn, has been m ore strongly nationalized. M ost obviously,
the developm ent o f the R egister o f the N ational Estate has served as the
instrum ent p a r ex c e lle n c e for both extend ing and deepening the past while
sim ultaneously organizing that past under the sign o f the nation. By 1981.
6,707 sites had been listed in the R egister and, o f these, 5 ,417 were classified
as historic places {A u stra lia s N a tio n a l E sta te 1985: 27, 31). Many of these
sites are - or, more accurately, were - o f a purely local significance and value.
The official p olicy docum ents make m uch o f this:

The N ational Estate is only a con ven ient generalisation for a great
w ealth o f individual, w ell-loved b uildings, precincts, areas, gardens,
parks and bushlands. The value o f the N ational Estate lies in each
individual item and esp ecially in its local and im m ediate setting.
(A u s tr a lia ’s N a tio n a l E sta te 1985: 19)
с
Yet this argument is, in som e respects, disingenuous. For the mere fact о
placing a site w ithin the N ational Estate m eans the local values i n v e s t e d m
it are, to som e degree, overdeterm ined by national ones. It b e c o m e s, willy
nilly, linked to thousands o f sim ilar sites elsew here and serves as a conitn°n
• th the
point o f reference for visitors from other states and regions wun
con sequ en ce that parochial histories are irretrievably reorganized in be111?
d ovetailed to other parochial histories as parts o f a wider, n a t i o n a l i z e d w
Sim ilar tendencies have been evident in the developm ent o f m u s e u m s -
interest in local and m unicipal m useum s noted by the Pigott C o m m i t t e e

144
 O U T QF W H IC H PAST?

I 'nued unabated, leading towards the innovation o f m any new m useum

С°П as at S overeign Hill and Tim bertow n. Equally, however, the d evelop-
,yPes
0f major state and national institutions has subjected these often
^ ' r s e d initiatives to a strongly unifying centripetal tendency. The respects
^ v h ich locally and regionally dispersed developm ents are accom panied by
* . ing ones at both the state and national levels was esp ecia lly clear as the
u o f the B icentennial celebration s unfolded. The innum erable local
l ^ eum and heritage projects sponsored by the Australian B icentennial
111 thority - from the B icentennial H istorical M useum at Landsborough
ugh the C ooee Park Bicentennial L ocal H istory M useum at Gilgandra to
l,e Historic V illage at R osny Park - were thus com plem ented by the opening
of major state institutions (the new P ow er H ouse m useum in Sydney, the
S to c k m a n ’s Hall o f Fame at Longreach) w hich, in turn, were co-ordinated

and ‘capped’, at the national level, by the opening o f the N ational M aritime
Museum and the travelling Australian B icenten nial Exhibition.
In brief, w hen, in 2 001, it eventually m aterializes, the projected M useum
of Australia w ill clearly serve, as did the War M em orial in its day, as the
c u l m i n a t i o n o f an extended process in w hich the national past has been

thoroughgoingly renovated w hile also providing the m ultiple local and state-
based initiatives with a central and co-ordinating point o f reference. Yet it is
not merely in a quantitative sense that the past has been significantly
transformed, although this itse lf has b een important in altering the very
texture o f the past, increasing its density and, accordingly its presence within
the present. The past has also been d iscu rsively reshaped in being subjected
to the organizing influence o f new rhetorics. More to the point, perhaps, these
rhetorics have taken, as their primary raw m aterials, p recisely those aspects
of post-settlement history w hich, in earlier periods, w ere overlooked as a
detritus devoid o f historical significance. The lives o f con victs and pioneers,
of settlers and m ining com m unities, o f different im migrant groups and, in
some contexts, o f A borigines: these are the m aterials out o f w hich, in its m ost
distinctively contem porary form s, the past is being remade.
H ow ever, only a knee-jerk populism w ould accord these dem otic and
multicultural im pulses unqualified approval. For, ultim ately, the raw mater-
lals out o f w hich a national past is m ade count for less than the rhetorics
"duch sh a p e their discursive fashioning. V iew ed from this perspective, the
Properties o f the new ly em erging national past are m ore am biguous and
c°ntradictory than a on e-eyed focus on the extended range o f its raw materials
^°uld s u g g e s t. On the one hand, particularly where new m useum initiatives
. e r e s u lte d in a curatorial input from social historians - in its e lf an
^Portant new developm en t19 - the result has often been critically interrogat-
bet ITIUseum d isplays w hich allow the visitor to reflect on the relations
^ Ween the past and the present. T his is true, to a degree, o f H yde Park
j^arracks, and even m ore so o f The Story o f V ictoria Exhibition at the
USeum o f V ictoria and the M igration and Settlem ent M useum in A delaide.
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

Yet these are m inority instances. V iew ed in its broader aspects, the past
been shaped by different pressures, in response to different constituQn
and m oulded by different d iscourses from those w hich seem ed most actjy'^’
influential in the W hitlam years. The active involvem ent o f w o r k in g C]6^
com m unities has not been m aintained, partly because questions o f muse***
and heritage p olicy have sin ce b ecom e centrally linked to the promotio ^
tourism . So much so that, whereas it had initially been envisaged that the °*
was to be preserved fr o m developm ent, it is now typically preserved f o r ^
often with the result that long-term cultural considerations are forced to t ’
second place to short-term , and often ex c eed in g ly hazardous, econom 5
calcu lation s.20
To place such issu es in their con text, however, a consideration of the
discursive pressures active in reshaping the Australian past is called for jt
w ill be helpful, in so doing, to relate m y opening theoretical remarks to these
concerns.

TH E S H A P E OF TH E PAST

Th e past in the present

In elaborating the educational advantages o f m useum s, the Pigott Committee

stressed their ability to ‘d ispense with those layers o f interpretation which,
in m ost m edia, separate an object or evidence from the au d ien ce’, suggesting
that ‘a gold nugget found at Ballarat in 1860 or a “ Tasmanian T iger” trapped
in 1900 w ill be lacquered less with layers o f interpretation in a museum hall
than in a film, history book, televisio n docum entary, photographs or song’
СM u seu m s in A u stra lia 1975: para.7 4 .1 7 ). K im berley W ebber strikes a similar
note w hen, in criticizin g the aura o f sanctity attached to the exhibits in the
Australian War M em orial, she su ggests that the cultivation o f a serious sense
o f A ustralia’s past ‘must rest upon a clear distinction betw een the rhetoric of
the relic and the reality o f the artefact’ (W ebber 1987: 170).
W hile occasion ally challenged, the ‘culture o f the artefact’ which u n d erlies
both p ositions continues to provide the primary terms o f reference governing
debate w ithin the m useum world. Yet the distinction on w hich it rests is a
fa lse one. For the artefact, on ce placed in a m useum , itse lf becom es,
inherently and irretrievably, a rhetorical object. A s such, it is just as thickly
lacquered with layers o f interpretation as any book or film. More to the point,
it is often lacquered with th e sa m e layers o f interpretation. For it is often
p recisely the presuppositions derived from other m edia that determine bo
w hich artefacts are selected for display in m useum s and how their arrange
ment is con ceived and organized. N o matter how strong the illusion to
contrary, the m useum visitor is never in a relation o f direct, u n m e d ia ^
contact with the ‘reality o f the artefact’ and, hence, with the ‘real stuff
the past. Indeed, this illusion, this fetishism o f the past, is itse lf an e ffeCt

146
 OU T OF W H IC H PAST?

arse. For the seem ing concreteness o f the m useum artefact derives from
,riSim ilitud e \ that is, from the fam iliarity w hich results from its being
iIS ’ j jn an interpretative context in w hich it is conform ed to a tradition and
P*aC irjade to resonate with representations o f the past which enjoy a broader
'^ial circulation.21 A s educative institutions, m useum s function largely as
S°C sitories o f the a lre a d y know n. T hey are places for telling, and telling
reP°" the stories o f our tim e, ones w hich have b ecom e a d o xa through their
^Hless repetition. If the m eaning o f the m useum artefact seem s to go without
еП ing- tbis 1S on'y because 11 has already been said so many tim es. A truly
a b l e - d e a li n g rascal, the m useum artefact seem s capable o f lending such
,e[ f- e v id e n t truths its ow n material* testim ony on ly because it is already
imprintec* sebimentec^ w eight o f those truths from the outset.
The authenticity o f the artefact, then, does not vou ch safe its m eaning.
Rather, this derives from its nature and fun ction ing, on ce placed in a m useum .
as a sjgn _ or, more accurately, a sign veh icle or signifier. The con sequ en ces
of this are far reaching. A ll o f the d eveloped theories o f language available
to us are in agreem ent that, apart from a few special cla sses, individual
signifiers have no intrinsic or inherent m eaning. Rather, they derive their
meaning from their relations to the other signifiers with w hich they are
combined, in particular circum stances, to form an utterance. This has the
obvious con sequ en ce that the sam e signifiers m ay g iv e rise to different
meanings depending on the m odes o f their com bination and the contexts o f1
their use.
That this is true o f m useum artefacts is amply confirm ed by those instances
in which changes in the system s o f classification governing m useum displays
have led to a radical transformation in the sign ifyin g function o f identical
artefacts. One o f the best known exam p les concerns Franz B o a s’s breach with
the typological system for the d isp lay o f ethnographic m aterials. In this
system, developed by Pitt R ivers, to o ls and w eapons were extracted from
their specific ethnographic origins and arranged into evolutionary series,
leading from the sim ple to the com p lex, in order to dem onstrate the universal
laws pf progress. B oas, by contrast, in sisted that ethnographic objects should
be viewed in the context o f the sp ecific cultures o f which they form ed a part
and promoted tribally-based displays w ith a view to dem onstrating ‘the fact
that civilisation is not som ething absolute, but that it is relative, and that our
ldeas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilisation g o e s ’ (cited in
Jacknis 1985: 83).
Given this, it is clear that the significance o f particular history museum
Plays or heritage sites is not a function o f their fidelity or otherw ise to the
Past as it really w a s’. Rather, it depends on their position within and relations
0 presently existing field o f historical discourses and their associated
and ideological affiliations - on what Patrick Wright has called their
* ^Present alignm ents (Wright 1984: 512). To consider the shape o f the
stralian past from this perspective requires that the past-present alignm ents

L 147
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

em bodied in its new and extended form s be considered >n their relati0ns
the political id eo lo g ies to w hich, in the m ain, they ha ve been artin.., ns to
W hite a detailed study o f this type cannot be attem pted here, a
consideration o f som e o f the m ore d istin ctiv e past-presen t a lig niTl Пе^
currently characterizing the national past w ill suffice to highliuflt en,s
am bivalent yield o f its recent form ation. "

T h e n ever - en di n g story

We have noted that, for A nderson, nations seem alw ays to loom out of
im m em orial past. He goes on to add, however, that they seem also to ‘glide
into a lim itless future’ (Anderson 1983: 19). In so far as they are ‘imagined
com m u n ities’ - w ays o f con ceivin g the occupants o f a particular territory as
essen tially unified by an underlying com m onality o f tradition and purpose
nations exist through, and represent them selves in the form of, long con­
tinuous narratives. A s w ays o f im agining, and so organizing, bonds of
solidarity and com m unity, nations take the form o f never-ending stories
w hich mark out the trajectory o f the people-nation w hose origins, rarely
precisely specified, are anchored in deep time just as its path seem s destined
en d lessly to unfold itself into a boundless future. Eric Hobsbawm makes a
sim ilar point when he notes, apropos the developm ent o f national traditions
in late nineteenth-century Europe, that the continuity such traditions evoked
was ‘largely fictitiou s’, stretching the im aginary continuity o f nations back
beyond the period o f their establishm ent as identifiably distinct cultural and
p olitical entities (H obsbaw m 1983).
This process o f stretching the national past so as to stitch it into a history
rooted in deep tim e is particularly evident in the case o f new nations where,
however, it also g iv e s rise to peculiar d ifficu lties. In the case o f settler
so cieties w hich have achieved a n ew ly autonom ized post-colonial status, this
process has to find som e way o f negotiating - o f leaping over - their only
too clearly identifiable and often m ultiple beginnings: 1788 and 1901, for
exam ple. The form ation o f the N ational Estate has been o f especial signific­
ance in this respect. Its role in ironing out the ruptures o f A ustralia’s multiple
beginnings to produce a national past w hich flow s uninterruptedly from the
present back to 1788 is esp ecia lly clear. This is accom plished, in the main,
by tw o m eans. First, the classification o f cultural artefacts from the period
prior to 1901 as parts o f the N ational Estate serves to wrench those artefacts
from the histories to w hich they were earlier connected - those o f Emptre’
for exam ple - and thus to back-project the national past beyond the point о
its effec tiv e continuity. Equally important, the very concept o f the Nation3
Estate entails that all particular histories are deprived o f their autonomy aS
their relics - private hom es, disused factories, exp lorers’ tracks, marked trees
- are dovetailed into the putative unity o f the national past. It would, in ^
respect, be m istaken to conclude from the dem otic structure o f the Nation

148

■
 OUT OF W H IC H PAST?

that is, its all-em bracing in clu siven ess, encom passing the histories
es,ate 'rdinate as w ell as o f elite groups - that it is dem ocratic also. The very
0f ‘“ t o f a national heritage is, o f n ecessity, dem otic; its ra iso n d 'e tr e is to
С°ПС|г1 diverse histories into one, often w ith the con sequ en ce that the histories
epi° ecific social groups are d ep oliticized as their relics com e to serve as
^bols ° f 1^е essen tial unity ° f the nation, or to highlight its recently
• ved unity, by standing for a d ivisiv en ess w hich is past.22 W hether or not
a° results o f these p rocesses can be described as dem ocratic depends less on
hat is included w ithin a national heritage than on the discourses which
anize the relations betw een those artefacts.
° yet the Australian National Estate con sists not m erely o f artefacts relating
the period o f European settlem ent. Its other main classification s are the
tural environment and A boriginal sites. D avid Low enthal, w riting shortly
after the publication o f the first R egister o f the N ational Estate, notes the
consequences o f this precisely:

The A u s tra lia n heritage incorporates not only the few decades sin ce the
European d iscovery but the long reaches o f unrecorded tim e com prised
in A b o rig in a l life a n d , before that, in the history o f nature itself, the
animals and plants and the very rocks o f the Australian continent. Thus
the felt past expands, enabling A ustralia to equal the antiquity o f any
nation. .
(Low enthal 1978: 86)

He might also have noted the sim ilar function o f the increased significance
accorded maritime history in recent m useum and heritage policy. This has
emerged as a major area o f interest w ithin each o f the states w hose various
maritime collection s received a point o f national co-ordination when the
National Maritime M useum opened towards the end o f 1988 - a year that saw
the nation’s maritime past con sp icu ou sly foregrounded through the First Fleet
re-enactment, the Tall Ships events and the national tour o f the Bicentennial
Shipwreck exhibition. More generally, the C om m onw ealth H istoric Ship­
wrecks Act o f 1976 has o fficially annexed pre-settlem ent m aritime history to
^e national past in declaring all w recks found in A ustralia’s coastal waters
aPart of the National Estate. The tem porary return to Australia o f H artog’s
Plate - currently the property o f the Rijksm useum in Amsterdam - for the
Perrod o f Shipwreck exh ib ition ’s tour is sym ptom atic o f the role maritime
tory plays in pushing the national past as far back beyond 1788 as possible
^ lnclude the voyages o f the explorers. Yet this particular way o f extending
Past also m eets a broader purpose. To the degree that they are fashioned
д rePresent both the outgoing history o f Europe and the incom ing history o f
pa^tra*'a> the inclusion o f the voyages o f the explorers w ithin the national
Ч1Щ,a^ovvs at least som e o f the various European co n stitu en cies in a
^ u l t u r a l A ustralia to anchor the ‘sh a llo w ’ h istories o f their recent
HTation in the structures o f a deeper time. At the sam e tim e, this rooting

149
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

o f the nation in a broader history o f contact also serve

past from the British dependency which results from U>''berate t h
the m om ent o f settlem ent. 11 an е *с1ц8^ е naii0^
Much o f this is not surprising. Nor, in itself is jt •
That said, this process o f elongatin g the national ^ ^ deni
q uestionable aspects o f w hich, here, I want to focu^ 1 d° es have°ra,,|e. •
A boriginal culture as an instrument o f nationing, and the ° П tW° : the ^
o f the nation to which these n ew ly created deep pasts _ Cf ° rward irajee* *
sea - are connected. ° land ana l0rits
O f IL
The follo w in g extracts from the 1982 P lan fo r the П
M useu m o f A u stra lia offer a con ven ient illustration о{
concerns:
^1°Р>П
°f ikет
1 e fifct of t|,e^

The M useum o f Australia w ill be a m useum about Austral'

with which every Australian can identify. It w ill tell of the ' UmUseum
and future o f our nation - the only nation which spans a PaSt’.presenl
w ill tell the history o f nature as w ell as the history of the°A'nent:
people . . .

Much o f the history o f Australia - the driest continent - has been sha ed
by its clim ate, its g eological antiquity, its vast distances and its island
isolation. B ecau se o f this, its flora and fauna are unique, and the same
tim eworn landscape con ceals ancient life forms and enormous mineral
resources.

A ustralia’s human history is ancient and distinctive. Aboriginal people

populated A ustralia early in the co lo n isin g surge of modern peoples
across the world. Over a period o f at least 4 0,000 years, the Aboriginal
people developed a spiritually com p lex society with an exceptional
em phasis upon ritual life and attachm ent to place. T hrough time.
A boriginal so c ietie s m odified the environm ent and, in their turn,
adapted to it with considerable regional variation.
A s the nation approaches the bicentenary o f European s e t t le m e n t ^ ^
becom e a com plex
p lex m ulticultural society. The c o n t in u in g story^ *tor^ (Q an
transformation o f A Australia
ustralia from a country o f hunter-gat
h u n ter-g a t e а(|0П_
industrial nation is one o f tragedy, triumph, persistence an t cojjeCtjVe
It should be told with vigour and objectivity, using ° U^ tljch foster
heritage to prom ote the con scio u sn ess and s e l f - k n o w l e d g e
a mature national identity. io82a-'
(M useum o f Austraha*

• • i „ f the ten d e d ’ 1 «
In 1975, the Pigott C om m ittee was sharply c ritic a l о artefacls
nineteenth-century m useum s, for A boriginal remains ' д ^ г а к 3 .( -
exhibited as parts o f natural history displays (Museum 0 _ o ccUP''
paras 4 .2 7 , 4 .3 0 ). The function o f such exhibits was с

150
 OUT OF W H IC H PAST?

and culture, A boriginal materials served both to

e between natu accounting for the transition between them,
the W ' o f the ladder o f human evolution, they represented
lo W e S t/ ts e m e r g e n c e out from nature - a sign w hose value was
pljAd l1lllhe stage ot t s ; how far humanity had progressed beyond its
^ The above passage clearly intends a d ecisiv e breach with
pu^'^toric’ origins- he significance it accords Aboriginal culture as w ell as
'prehhgoncePlionS 1П [ -nes within the national subject ( ‘every Australian’) its
clus io n ° f Hd" esses. Yet it w ould be an indulgent reading w hich
'nl'tructs and a r e wha{ is m ost strjking about the passage are the
'-gained at this eve Aborjginal culture in the same representational
Aspects in wtlic 1 between nature and culture) albeit transform ing the
,race (the relat'°ace jn using it as a device o f nationing. For the role assigned
functionofthat sP_s -s (hat o f a m ediating term connecting the history o f
^ rlginalElem ent to the deep history o f the land (its ‘g eolog ica l antiquity'
European se landscape>) and 0f its flora and fauna ( ‘ancient life form s’). In
jnd'timew ^ cliff-ed ge o f 1788 to anchor the nation in the structures
:hUS T ^ er time, 'his conception fulfils a number o f further tasks. First, it
‘comes any sense of rupture between the phases o f pre- and post-settlem ent
n suggesting that Aborigines be view ed m erely as a first w ave o f settlem ent
ithev just cam e ‘early in the colonising surge o f modern p eop les') w ho, just
as did their successors, adapted the environm ent to their needs. In this way,
anessential unity is constructed for a 4 0 ,0 0 0 year span o f history by enfolding
ns different phases into a discourse o f developm ent which tells the history o f
me nation as a ‘continuing story o f the transformation o f Australia from a
country o f h u n te r-g a th e re rs to an industrial nation’, a never-ending story o f
iragedy, trium ph, persistence and innovation’. This also enables the discourse
of m ulticulturalism to be back-projected into the m ists o f tim e where it finds
support in the regional variation o f Aboriginal cultures,
s reiT-8*11 ^ thou£ht that this is making too much o f a few paragraphs from
Muse"Ve^ ear*y P*ann'n8 document. Certainly, in m any o f its details, the
***r*8raph° ^ Ustra'*a may w e ** turn out differently. Yet, they are key
accuratel t*1C ^rst ^е^п‘1'уе statement o f the concept o f the Museum -
a со-огсИ ^ lnc*‘cat've ° f the nationing rhetoric governing its conception
s'nce 1788 The ,? rran®em ent ° f three galleries: the G allery o f Australia
' UsIralian E n v ir allery A borginal A ustralia and the G allery o f the
'hal the Gallery0111?16111 ^ ere seem s little doubt, from more detailed plans,
Plc,i°n of the eff ^ o r ig in a l Australia w ill be seriou sly critical in its
luM)me degree th iT ^ °* ^ uroPean settlem ent on A boriginal p eoples. Yet,
‘''nr?'1''1 W*1'ch. in itsW'** overs^a(low e(l hy the overall conception o f the
"ec,ing r0|e • S very structure, is unavoidably deeply am biguous in the

W £ "ГГ Aborigi"al his,ory-

Play'ng Aborigj1 T SC remarlcs should suggest the inappropriateness
na materials within the fram eworks o f nationalized

151
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

narratives. There is, however, a further problem with such

the national past, one deriving from the discursive pressu narrat'v'Zaf m
subject from the broader cultural environm ent. This *°
form s o f narrativization w hich, like that em bodied in the ^аг1‘Си1аг1у ^1
o f Australia, are organized in terms o f a discourse o f f an f° r fhe 1ц Гие °f
o f the degree to which this discourse has been annexed tcT hl0prnent i n ^
o f A ustralia’s leading business corporations. Paul James 1 6 PUblic inia^'
how, in the aftermath o f the ‘new n ation alism ’, such cor 3S Usefully sj,®er>
renovate their public im ages and, in doing so, to attach th e f*'10"5 S° u§h? 5
o f the new nationalism to their corporate interests (James l h x ^ 8^ imP«Ui
claim ing to em body the future trajectory o f the nation h et,int|Uis
strategies o f such corporations have also sought to connect advertising
nationalized im ages and traditions - the iconography 0f th РГ6 ex'sllni
landscape, the frontier spirit, the m otif o f ‘the quiet achiever’ - to Austral'an
im ages. The m eaning potential o f such im ages and traditions is ° theirpublic
now sign ifican tly overdeterm ined by the corporate imagery
becom e attached to them through extended and highly influential adve hH
cam paigns. In BP A ustralia’s ‘Quiet A ch iever’ advertisements for ^
both the Australian land and its surrounding oceans are represented i^ Ie rm
o f a discourse o f developm ent w hich presents the corporation’s exploratorv
activities as the outcom e o f a long story o f exploration and development
reaching back into the rem ote history o f the continent.23 Nor have the
them atics o f m ulticulturalism proved any less immune to corporate appropri­
ation. The B ond corporation’s B icentennial advertisement, for example, also
represents the story o f the nation as a continuous story of ‘tragedy, triumph,
persistence and in novation’ in portraying su ccessive waves of settlers and
im m igrants, all those ‘w ho thought th ey ’d never make it’, whose d i f f e r e n t
are finally annulled as they make their w ay through to their ultimate h isto ric a l
reward and destiny: a glass o f Swan lager.
In his exam ination o f the British national past, Patrick Wright cba™J*ecj|
one o f its dom inant past-present alignm ents as ‘the co m p la cen t ou
align m en t’:
This alignm ent m akes it possib le to think o f historical dec ^ ° Ppresent.
com p lete, a process w hich finds its accom plishm ent in w |,iCh
H istorical developm ent is here con ceived as a c u m u l a t i v e p
has delivered the nation into the present as its m a n i f e s t acc ^ are tlie
Both celebratory and com placent, it produces a sense t aS 0ur
achievem ent o f history and that w hile the past is thus P us [0 v isit-
right it is also som ething that our narcissism will e n c o
52)
exhibit, write up and d iscuss. (Wrigl11 ’
strati'"'
a d v ertisin g fo<
The p ast-presen t alignm ent em bodied in c o r p o r a t e a afigntne
might appropriately be characterized as an a c t i v e oU
Г
Into
-.-Limp, ь ..ween
OUT OF W H IC H PAST?

a cum ulative process which has delivered the nation

jeVv s the p3Sts accom plishm ent. Yet that present, w hile marking an
jt.t°°'Vpresent aS * b n0t mark a com pletion; rather, it stands poised as a
doeSast and a future cast in the sam e m ould. The future
е ^ ееП a Ion which
. , it marks
m „rve out is governed
eoverned by
bv the logic
lotiic o f ‘more
'more
, < Л о г ^ па1 story 0 f developm ent in which multinational
’+c\° ' я nevei"euu b j
tr*r salTie • a as the primary representatives of a process of un-
' lhorationS figUrement which seem s to em erge naturally out o f the relations
* * * * * * * i t s e l f and its inhabitants. The tem ptation, by no means
^ e e n the ve^ useum 0f Australia, to work along with such narratives in
Ignited t° the jiiarity and, therefore, ready intelligibility, is understandable.
oflheir taffll'lie degree to which those narratives have been hijacked by
However- 8lV^ nai jnterests, it is a tem ptation that should be actively resisted.
^riiculaf seL

T he p en al past -

Millbank Penitentiary opened in 1817, a room festooned with chains,

1 nd in stru m e n ts o f torture was set aside ds a m useum (Evans 1982).
"^didanew philosophy o f punishment com m itted to the rehabilitation o f
offender through the detailed inspection and regulation o f behaviour
distance itself from an earlier regim e o f punishm ent w hich had aim ed to make
power manifest by enacting the scene o f punishm ent in public. The same
period witnessed a new addition to L ondon’s array o f exhibitionary institu­
tions. In 1835, after decades o f show ing her w axw orks the length and breadth
f the country, Madame Tussaud set up perm anent shop in London. Her new
establishment included, as a major attraction, the Chamber o f Horrors where,
Jtnong other things, the barbarous e x c esses o f past practices o f punishm ent
«displayed in gory detail (see A ltick 1978). As the century developed,
dungeons of old castles were opened to public inspection, as they still
CastlTf 'ПШаПУ places’ as 1^е centre-pieces o f m useum s - as at Lancaster
centuri °rexamP*e’ or at York’s C astle M useum , located in two eighteenth-
^Hgeon^ 150115 - ^ ac*ame Tussaud's now has a rival in the London
e*®ect»techП6| °^- С^ ' 8 most popular tourist attractions, where special-
;,!tJ Punish^ 0 ° g'es reProduce the m utilation o f the body in scen es o f torture

C 5 5 my' s,eryear'
"lle rernarked>r>mentS ЭГ6 n0t т е г е 'У °t an anecdotal significance. Although
c'e|°Pment 0| Upon’ 1^еге is an important sym bolic sym biosis betw een the
fp^'ffltaneous te^r*S° nment 3S maj or modern form o f punishment and
of Penality w - n-110^ m useums and related institutions to include past
new °f tlle Penite ' ■ Ш rePertoire o f representational concerns. It is the
^ 'he d e g r e e '^ l^Ut Punishm ent should remain hidden from public
Чщит to embo(jv u Ut 's s o ’ the penitentiary’s reforming rhetoric -
l'°n of the off Urnane f°rm s o f punishment oriented towards the re-
e n d e r - is deprived o f public validation. The exhibition
 POLICIES A N D POLITICS ^
o f the ex cesses o f past regim es o f punishment thus
with the visib le supports which W higgish view s of tlle pen-
very openness o f past scen es and practices o f penaliT- Ьщ° гУ гепц'^’Ч
helps to ensure that the doors o f the penitentiary rern У *° PUblic in"*' ^
in conjuring up visions o f such barbarity that the prison " We" atld tru ^ 1'0» !
* * could not but seem benevolent in com parison. ’ Wbatever jts ^ st|H 1
These considerations are esp ecia lly pertinent to A
unique im portance accorded representations o f penality Г<1|'а.'п v'e\v of
o f the national past. Yet this, too, is a relatively new dev'Г'" the
to thirty years ago, m ost penal institutions from the c o n v ic t ° Pment-
disused or dedicated to other governm ent functions Since^^h"0*1Were either
o f such institutions - as w ell as late nineteenth-century prisom " numt*r
been converted into m useum s is truly remarkable. Port A h ~ Ьа'е
Barracks, Old M elbourne Gaol and Old Dubbo Gaol are'■ Рагк
obvious exam p les, but these are com plem ented in innumerableT^ ^ m°M
which have been converted to house local history displays Yet i t ' priso,K
the marked increase in the quantitative significance accorded reD n° tS'mpl-
o f penality that m ost d istinguishes their function. This derives from the1'0"5
that such representations usually play in two registers sim ultaneously-^
parts o f W higgish v iew s o f penal history, and as components o f discourses
concerning the nation’s origins.
W here the form er concern predom inates, the emphasis falls on depictine
the harshness o f the con vict system or that o f the penal institutions developed
to deal w ith indigenous crim e in the course o f the nineteenth century. It is
thus that Jim A llen urges that Port Arthur should be primarily concerned to
dem onstrate the failure o f the con vict system . Similarly, although in its day-
like Port Arthur - em bodying the ideals o f nineteenth-century penal reformer
in their aspiration to use im prisonm ent as a mode of rehabilitation. O ld
M elbourne Gaol now functions as a testim ony to the harshness of a pena
regim e that is represented as past. In its display o f the instruments oPPn^ |
d iscipline (the cat, truncheons, a w hipping post), the scaffold ^reconS^ Uwere
for the film N e d K e lly ), the condem ned cell, the white masks Pn*°"^ns the
obliged to wear outside their cells and the death masks ot hange s>sleni
Gaol fulfils the sam e function in relation to Australia s mobern jP njneteenih
as did the m useum w ithin the M illbank Penitentiary for the m
century: its locates penal severity in the past. . vgs conv'cl
The m ore distinctive rhetoric, however, is that which retrie . pena1
т ♦*v*i с re s у с t -4#
population as one o f the cornerstones o f the nation, in war(js the co°vl
past form s a part o f a broader process in which a t tit u d e s t o ^ ^ disc°v^ |
period have been significantly transformed - so much s0 0f genea10- 1^,
o f con vict ancestry is now one o f the m o s t s o u g h t - a f t e r p r ^ \Vhat is ^
inquiry (C ordell 1987). A healthy dem otic tendency, ^ be cast
questionable is the accom panying tendency for the con ^ е цпеаГ'
role o f enlisted im migrants or early pioneers in order to

1 54

I
 OU T OF W H I C H PAS T?

the s u b s e q u e n t histories o f settlers, squatters, miners

- to which in a relationship o f uninterrupted continuity. As
, t he lesson s o f Рог, Arthur:

^ > 1са1“ traffic d eveloped, until today, visitors from all

, auaHy a t0lJr be com e in their thousands to Port Arthur to catch a
Gra„ers of the g ,°days and relive a history o f w hich we should be very
1 ionOfbyg0nehe story o f the pioneers, bond and free, who laboured
'L d - for ‘‘ 1S,h the foundations o f the Tasmania we know and enjoy
^ethet t° buU
l^ ay. (P o rt A rth u r H isto ric S ite 1984).

■ is evident at The R ocks where, in being com bined with a

fltfsame rhet° ^ on 0f the W higgish view o f penality, it serves the unlikely
,jnonalized N ^ |ishing a m oment o f origin for the nation w hich, in its
r u rp °se ot tendency> js represented as free o f conflict. Cadman’s Cottage
^ P p ^ j r o p r e s s io n s sculpture in The R ocks Square thus both suggest
11X11,16 only forms o f conflict to mar early Australian history were those
rtedfrom the old world in the form o f the antagonistic relations between
olonial administration and the marines on the one hand and the convicts
he other. Yet these antagonism s - alien intrusions im posed by a past and
foreign regime of punishment - are retrospectively erased once Australian
history proper gets under way as the con victs and m arines, when granted land,
ire portrayed as rubbing shoulders w ith the settlers in laying the foundations
fora free, democratic and m ulticultural so ciety 24.
While it may seem fairly innocuous, this transformation o f the penal past
into a device of nationing has the further con sequ en ce o f pre-em pting the
uses to which that-past can be put. The use o f a nationing rhetoric is never
aninnocent choice; its consequences have to be assessed partly in terms of
e alternatives it excludes. Thus, in according the penal past the role o f a
mdational chapter in the history o f the nation, that past is sim ultaneously
-d from other histories to w hich it might be more intelligibly, and
< У more critically, related - in particular, the broader and subsequent
fitoices0 ^ UStraban Penality. This w ould involve different representational
Dri 01,1 t,1C Synchronic anc* diachronic levels: synchronically, in
^ fQrS° ns t0 other historically contem porary penal institutions -
taddiachro example’ or institutions for destitute w om en and their children -
m ln thei U- ^ Ш ге^а^ п8 the penal past to present-day form s o f punish-
"luti°ns m • SlngU^ar
^a'*ure even to gesture in this direction, all o f the
'"*l re8ard ю П K)nec* ab° v e serve a crucial role in institutionalizing am nesia
\ ' '° the pre ContemPorary practices o f punishment. In aligning the penal
and jn nt within the fram ework o f a rhetoric o f national develop-
t^ Co,ne, c0meepreSenting l^at past as one w h ° se e x c esses have been
Cpt ttlat Whic^ ° rary ^orms ° f punishm ent are bereft o f any public history
- axiom atically, declares their b enevolence.

155
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

T he to u rist past

Dean M acCannell has argued that ‘the best indication of

m odernity over other sociocultural arrangem ents is n o u h '^ fina| vjct
the nonm odern world, but its artificial preservation a n /
modern so c ie ty ’. M useum s and heritage sites ‘estab lish reconstrUcti Ce^
Sefinition and boundary o f m odernity by rendering concr ^ *
that w hich m odernity is n ot’, rendering the present ‘as r ^ ^ '"^edi'1*
tourist attractions’ (M acCannell 1976: 8 - 9 , 84). revealed objec,s'ait
W hile a useful general com m ent on the amount o f social
so cieties devote to the social production and preservatio £^ 0Г1 m°dem
M acC annell’s observation applies with particular force to fi/* Pasb
open-air m useum s. The rapid developm ent o f this form - at «'Пё hlSt0r.v or
Timbertown and Old Sydney Town, for exam ple - has constitut6^ " Hill‘
distinctive addition toeA ustralia’s m useum com plex over the last 6 m0il
and certainly the m ost popular: Sovereign H ill, a r e c o n s t r u c t i///03^ '
nineteenth-century gold -m in in g town, attracted five million visitors3 ^
tw elve years after its op en ing in 1970. It is also, seemingly, the" ^
dem ocratic o f m useum form s in its concern to reproduce the timbre offo
everyday liv es o f ordinary people in past form s o f community.
Yet such appearances are often d eceptive. The history of open-air folk
m useum s is a deeply am biguous one. M ichael W allace traces the prehiston
o f the form to ‘such eighteenth-century aristocratic productions as Marie
A n toin ette’s play peasant villa g e (com plete with marble-walled dairy).
French fo lie s such as Parc M onceau, and the great landscape parks of the
English gentry w hich excised all signs o f daily peasant activity and eradicated
any sense o f tim e other than the artificially constructed “natural'" (Wallace
1985: 40). The late nineteenth-century Scandinavian open-air m u s e u m move
ment - con ven tionally regarded as the origin o f the form - was strongly
influenced by romantic con ception s o f folk culture as an imaginative anu
to the degradations o f capitalism , and accordingly, tended tow
idealized depiction o f past social relations cast in the mould °^ a jn the
organic com m unity. The sam e was true o f the development ot t e °
United States in the 1920s and 1930s, except that - as at 0pen-aif
Greenfield V illage - the liv es o f the pre-industrial tolk to ..(inlek»
m useum s were dedicated were so fashioned as to e mblematiz<- ^ se|f-
and d a te less” pioneer virtues o f hard work, discipline, rag ^ )ГПа2‘паГ'
relian ce’ - exem plary precursors o f capitalism rather
antitheses (W allace 1981: 72). , an dem0^ 31' ^
„ In brief, the form has tended to be populist rathei only at the
conception, finding a place for the lives o f ordinary Pe° | / ne£| dis*'-1! ^ i>
o f subm itting them to an idealist and c o n s e r v a t i v e l y ‘rtnas s u c b - J J n
O f course, this is not an intrinsic attribute ol the ^ resoafC
nothing in principle to prevent open-air m u s e u m s u s in g
 OU T OF W H IC H PAST?

,ssence. theatrical - to offer a more critical relation to

,pich are' ,e 25 N one the less, the form ’s history does tend, in
0 * ' {S they Pr0t UeCssure on the ways in which its uses are con ceived , often
the pa> toe*ert a pr that Serious m useum enterprises are side-railed into the
P < /c m ythologies. An added d ifficulty is that the form
",thLnd ° f COnSe' a ssu re from another source, one w hose developm ent it
KsfIc0lI1es under ,arnd w hose evocation o f Main Street U SA draws substan-
'"|litated: ^ " ^ /r e s t o r a t io n o f colon ial W illiam sburg.
on the ear* t a relationship o f equivalence between D isneyland
JThis is n0t 10 д aad open-air m useum s. But they are institutions which
jnd iIS ‘""^'/everal w ays. Their them atics are often similar. If D isneyland
0\erl*P, a n d W illiam sburg, the goldm ining sector at Dream world - a
„mics colon'a the G oid Coast - calls Sovereign Hill to mind. They are,
•heme Park on ectecl by v irtUe o f their clo sely related positions w ithin the
^ ' V n e T a r y A survey o f D isn eylan d visitors reveals that a high
tourist s i • ^ em regard a trip to D isneyland and visitin g historic sites as
^ ''r e la t e d activities (Real 1977: 7 2 - 3 ). W hile there is no equivalent
nation for Australia, it seem s lik ely that associations o f m eaning are
'”|ed over from one type o f institution to the other within the tourist’s
itinerary.
Perhaps most important, however, are the distinct sim ilarities betw een the
«ays in which Disneyland and open-air m useum s organize how their visitors
negotiate and experience the relations betw een their constructed interiors and
theoutside world. Moreover, these constitute the respects in which Australian
open-air museums most strongly resem ble one another even though, in other
respects, they are quite distinct. M ost obviously, they differ with regard to
the styles of performance regulating the w ays in w hich costum ed museum
enters mediate the relations between the visitors and their reconstructed
■oncal milieux. At Timbertown, a m useum which reconstructs the life o f
°f such^ COmmun',y 'n northern N ew South W ales, the stress falls on the use
le0jn ~ f ^ as ^ v‘n8 history props, costum ed com plem ents to the historical
‘''Pout of Same 'S trUC ^overe'8n H ill, except that costum ed sta ff will
^•nation t*1C*r r°*e s’ ruPtur>ng their i11usionistic function, if asked for
:lle staff a^onj1'*6 1^еГе аГе a*S° non' costum ed site interpreters. By contrast.
' ^aPoleon'• и / ^ Пе^ ^0w n ’ w h>ch recreates Sydney during the period of
' mixi , sPe c 'al'ze >n what can best be characterized as historical
. pr°duce a н / V е rout'ne ° f vaudeville theatre and holiday camp hosts
4‘mbody When аГ re*at*on t0 Past which, at one level, they are meant
° ° Verriding со SUCl1 d'PPerences are acknow ledged, however, there remain
pXcess - a com11" 11011 Peatures which - precisely because it em bodies them
‘nthet'apS ,lle ntost h^ 00 W't*1 D isn ey ,and usefully illum inates,
by a| lrm'niaturi2;lt"11p0rtant s'milarity betw een the tw o institutions consists
duc‘i°n in the ° n PaSt so c'a' re*ations. At D isneyland this is achieved
SCale °f historical reproductions. The buildings on Main

157
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

Street U SA , for exam ple, are at least an eighth less than

costs m ore,’ Walt D isn ey exp lain ed , ‘but made th eV * 16^ tfUe SU
im agination can play more freely with a toy. Besides 3 1оУ, ^ ^
that their world is som ehow more grown up then Pan ’>Pe°P|e like lb«
1977: 54). W hile open-air m useum s rarely g 0 to t h V s ^ ^C‘ted i n ^
effects are similar. In clustering together, in a com М те len8[hs ^
con ceivab le building type - w orkers’ cottages, s c h o o l Space-'e!**
dlery, sm ithy, stables, store, saw m ill, newspaper office - th ° tel’ Chureh
the illusion o f know able, self-en clo sed little worlds which6”' ° ^ 6Г the
a glance, revealed to the tourist’s gaze in their entirety i/ / * 36 taken'п*
m orning’s stroll. Or, as at Tim bertown, laid open to a c o n tr o ll/ / C°Urseof
a
railw ay ride w hich - like the one at Dreamworld - circles V'si°n viathe
establishes its perim eters, separating it from the bush with Z sile and
it also m erges im perceptibly. A s the brochure
experience which beckons:

Step back into the past . . . and take a stroll through Australia’s h’
Timbertown is an entire village, re-created to demonstrate the str/ T
and achievem ents o f our pioneers. It reflects the way they lived the S
they worked, their hardships and their skills.

It is not a lifeless m useum . . . it lives! It’s an authentic, vital township

where the stream train runs, timber is still sawn, the bullock team still
trudges with its heavy load, the woodturner transforms natural timber
into works o f art, and the general store sells home-made wares and
lo llies in glass jars . . .

Hear, too, the n oises o f yesteryear . . . the w histle of the steam train,
the b ellow in g o f the bullocks, the clanging o f the blacksmith’s iron.
And, as you pass the old hofel, you hear the sounds of the pianola or
true Australian folk m usic, the happy sounds that entice the folk of the
village into the tavern for a hearty singalong . . .

And in this atm osphere o f rural serenity, its [jjc] likely 1,1а^ еГ $
tow nship fringes w ill reveal kangaroos, w allabies, k ook ab urras,
birds and other sp ecies o f Australian fauna.
. a-indw01^
T im bertow n. . . a fascinating reflection o f how people ive. n Ьи5(, life-
in the sim p licity and ruggedness o f 19th Century A ustra ia
sists in 1 л
A number o f d ifficu lties co a lesce here. The first c
naturalization o f past social relations which results from t e ^ ^ mertL
and, more particularly, from their self-enclosure. T im b er^ the ^
a com pressed and know able little world, it is also an iso a ^ ^ soCja ^
does not lead out o f the town, connecting it to a W1 jtself.
econom ic relations, but rather circles it, closing it 1П ,_-игп teHs "
и ’ h th e rn u s
sequence is that the tale o f pioneer hardship whicn
 OUT OF W H IC H PAST?

n com m entaries which relate the conditions o f work

nl of push' u ^orest _ seem s to be one w hich flow s from the
111ll,e '^vViTii11 ° r U1seif If the m ill w orkers’ living conditions were spartan
•П,|ie ^ o f natUre long and arduous, this is because the bush w as a stern
^ * f i r * orldng m ingly little t0 do with the en com Passing sy stem o f
^ faster- It haS which governed the structure o f the timber industry - the
:J\ omic relati° n g^ship prevailing w ithin it, the organization o f the world
eC°diti°nS ° f ° Wnet0 which its profits were retained in Australia or returned
^ e t . the degr£^us powerfully influenced the w ays and standards o f living
Britaiu ' alld ' ^ as w en as their internal structures o f power and authority.
»ithintimbert°e^cerpting the reconstructed tow nship from any sense o f a
' Щbrief- by e context< Timbertown m ystifies past social relations, trans­
c o d e tllSt0't1jgU]ar phase in the capitalist exploitation o f A ustralia’s natural
;orming a Par .dyll where the village folk troop o ff to the tavern every
resources !at°mmunal singalong. This screening o f past econom ic relations is
n,ght for anted by the wayS in which Timbertown sim ultaneously masks the
^ re la tio n s which secure its ow n existence. A s is true o f m any open-
°museums, this venture in living history rests on a dual econom y. A part o f
function of such museums is to deliver a market for the various retail
i tlets- s e l l i n g refreshments, craft products, tourist curios, historical fetishes

- w h ic h constitute a significant proportion o f th e if interiors. W hile som etim es

run b y salaried staff, such enterprises are often run privately by local
entrepreneurs who, much like side-stall operators at am usem ent parks, are
leased their premises on a concessionary basis. A lthough the rent charged such
private businesses helps to m eet overhead and salary costs - including those
associated with the special displays w hich provide one o f the major tourist
enticements - these are m ostly provided for through adm ission charges.
Both aspects of this dual econom y tend to be shrouded. Transactions with
stumed retailers are conducted in an im aginary m ode, as if the visitor were
a genuine historical article from an authentic inhabitant rather than
fntrepre ° r a commodity decked out in the attire o f history from an
**soc*ateld UF'° r Sa*ar'ed worker- The m asking o f the econ om ic relations
more co m T ^ ^ dernonstrati ° n o f past crafts and sk ills has a som ewhat
hspiayed are^ Structure’ ^ t Tim bertow n, m ost o f the form s o f labour
'tags tfie sam^ ni SSdy unPr°d u ctive on their ow n terms: a team o f bullocks
Jnilunyoked in °h r° Und same circle several tim es a day, and is yoked
Mlvated at sel t ernonstration o f traditional skills: an operating saw m ill is
^°Ur with no г-Гт' ^Ut. d Cuts no dmbfrr. A significant amount o f social
^ 're|y'n the reve a d’scern‘ble end-product, its productivity consists
^ c l e , ,abor -h tc h its display generates. It is, in other words, labour
tothle as SUch, hov^ tranS^0rmed ^nt0 a form o f tourist consum ption w hose
:fle that theT^ *S "ddldrawn from the arena in which it is performed
Undaries 0f tbe ransactions which sustain it take place o ff-site, outside
abricated historical m ilieu in the buffer zone which
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

regulates the visito rs’ transition betw een the site’s

betw een past and present. l ls >de anc)
The markers o f such transition zones are many
---------------ш ину aand v
n a Varj
Sydney Town are perhaps the m ost elaborate, beginning ’ u Those
\ir\lir РОГ ЬоГО onrl lon\;n tbo 1 . ^ Ш бP a*- _ ^ (
your car here and leave the twentieth century behind’) ar Park,. 1,1
the entry building - a large, m odern com plex o f tourist ki C° ntInuing t|,r **
visitors to^ make sure they have all they "ceu need before th ° Пя hich
netore they uro°U?h
nUrge,r
turnstiles, as there were no cam eras, batteries or films in 173 thr° u?h *
on ce the price o f adm ission has been paid, through a barbe ~ and the'
area before entering a tunnel which g iv es access to the гоп ^ ‘ea'ho ^
1788. A lthough not so com p lex, the buffer zones o f SovT ° f *list0r.v- to
Tim bertown are essen tially^ sim ilar in nature. * Timbertow is f Hil1—
aHituci town еГе'8П
hyper-modern building within which the boundary between Г° Ше(1 b- a
is marked by a turnstile (staffed by costum ed museum workersT'fr''1 Prese,u
the foyer (modern and functional) from a period setting w hich • dlvide'
a passagew ay displaying equipm ent associated with the timb/rTd ^ У1°
adjustment zon es leading to the zone o f history proper. The effect o f ^
markers is reinforced by their virtual absence within the reconstruct
historical m ilieux o f the m u seum s’ interiors. These are rigorous in thei
exclu sion o f any signs o f modernity. Sovereign Hill is bereft of explanaton
notices in case these m ight detract from the authenticity of the illusion Old
Sydney Town provides historical inform ation in the form of notice-boards
w hich contrive - in their appearance o f age, their antiquated spelling and
m odes o f address - to be intended for a citizen o f 1788 rather than a modern
tourist. Rubbish bins are hidden in barrels. Toilets are coyly signposted as
privies and contained w ithin period buildings - as at Timbertown where, as
if to deny them official ex isten ce, they are not indicated on the plan ol the
site in the m useum ’s brochure.
Yet nowhere is an inside more effec tiv e ly separated from its o utside than
at D isneyland. M.R. Real notes that, apart from the physical boundaries 0 ^
huge parking lot, a circulating railway and the ticket booths, the vislt0^ 1
screened to ensure that prescribed dress codes - no politica ™eSS ’ nIiai
allow ed on patches, buttons or T-shirts - are observed, and t a.m ^ i .
unruly elem en ts (drinkers or addicts) are excluded. Perhaps different
however, is the screening out o f m oney through its r e p l a c e m e n (h f

classes o f tick ets, special tokens w hich allow free Part'^ jt ^asalreaJ'
entertainm ents o f the interior - but free, o f course, only , t0 securC
been paid for. Yet this screening out o f m oney is designe ° nrnents coye
more liberal passage when the visitor m oves from the entere(s jn encoura; ^
by the entry ticket to D isn eylan d ’s i n n u m e r a b l e r e ta il ou ^ aS pla>- ^
the illusion o f a world in w hich consum ption is exPerl gnted to uS
Main Street fa cad es’, as Umberto Eco puts it. are ^ .^ a y s a ^ y iitf
houses and invite us to enter them, but their in te r io r is stiHP
that you
supermarket, where you buy ob sessively, believing

1 60
к , ' T
OUT OF W H IC H PAST?

h s c a l e no doubt, is different; none the less, the principle

m u s e u m s is essen tially sim ilar - stim ulating com m od-
in ореП" rgan izing consum ption under the sign o f history - as are
< u . a tion bhyic°h it is accom plished.
,1? eansb>' yer a more general problem arising from the relationship
is' h0WeVrved or reconstructed past and the econ om ics o f tourism
*een the pre"aSeums serve m erely to highlight. It is, moreover, a problem
^ |Chopen'a'rn]|v "acute in the Australian context and threatens to becom e
is ^ ^ h a t in contrast v/ith the loftier sentim ents o f the 1970s, the
note s° n° W '„ur’ist dollar has becom e the primary driving force o f m useum
,earcbf°rthe 10 jicy д 5 Dean M acC annell notes, the lo g ic o f historical
jnd heritage V ^ & wecjge betw een the modern world and the past by
'cunsm IS [atter jn the im age o f m odernity's im aginary other; a world
:'a>hi°ninsliave supp0 sedly lost and w hich we retreat to from the present in
* h ' Ch T n e v e r - t o - b e - f o u n d set o f roots or identity. Even as noted a historian

^ ■ Clark is n o t immune to the allure o f this conception:

к МЗПГ11П2

On a journey round the inhabited parts o f Australia today the eye o f the
veller is rarely given respite from the m onum ents o f the age o f the
motor car and the jet engine. The m otel, the used car lot, the petrol
bowser, the fast food dispenser and the bottle shop have b ecom e the
main features of the scenery in w hich w e live out our lives. In the cities
high-rise buildings dominate the horizon, in the country wheat silos
have replaced the tem ples o f an earlier age. .
Yet from time to time, in places such as W indsor in N ew South W ales,
Carlton in Victoria, Burra in South Australia, K algoorlie in Western
Australia, Roma in Queensland, Evandale in Tasmania, Gungahlin in
the Australian Capital Territory or Darwin in the Northern Territory,
the traveller or the local inhabitant is im m ediately aware o f another
Australia, remote from the Australia o f the skyscraper and conspicuous
waste. there is also an old Australia.
(Australian C ouncil o f N ational Trusts 1978)

PMt is thgF 6Ven t0 casua* observation that the structure o f the Australian
tempera] imbIC|tlm & ГЦГа* Serrym ander which brings with it a marked
'Pioneers * Т *"6 ow ‘nS t0 'ts disproportionate concentration on the lives
'n ttle fineteenth^' eXp'0rers’ g°'d -m in in g com m unities and rural industries
'<Jris this sirnnl C6ntUr^ at tbe exp en se o f tw entieth-century urban history.
.^oted to such fh*mattCr preponderance o f m useum and heritage sites
■ n ^ ' ^ p a s t ? 65- ^ tour'st l'terahJre, with a con sistency w hich belies
Agister ° f theSn ePreSemeC* 3S Prec'se *Y som ething to get away to, often
V ®ommes peam world jin gle ‘Take a trip away from the everyday',
^ree*’ 3r®Ue that i atr'C^ b r ig h t, noting a sim ilar tendency in the British
lt,at the forrrterSerVeS *° c*e *1'stor'c ‘ze bo,b Past and present to the
er becom es a tourist spectacle p recisely because it is

161
 POLICIES AND POLITICS
divorced fromi the m e present
p i e s e i u wmhile
i e the latter — or, more
m e laiier
past — seem s devoid o f history p recisely because it d o p ? Ufately’ the
uoes not fal,
zone o f the o fficially dem arcated past (B om m es and Wri h whli 4^
is a clear dilem m a here. The more the structure o f the ■* ' ^ 6) T ,****
exig en cies o f tourism , the greater the likelihood that ^ SubJect [()^ Ге
country rather than the city, and on the nineteenth rather h'1' f° CUs °n
century. It w ill, as a con seq u en ce tend to offer the' the tvvent
Australians an im aginative diversion from their present maj°rity ('h
ence rather than affording a fam iliarity with the more ц”ПС1'1'.0П8 of exjs°f
from which those conditions effec tiv e ly flow. Such a policy Т п 6 hist0ries
con text, runs the further risk - and the more so as tourism ^ Austral'an
increasingly export-orientated industry - o f fashioning a рад becom'“ ° m e s' u‘
the demand o f foreign visitors for tourist locations which se^m^'' meets
the virtues o f the ex o tic, the eccentric and the authentic - in h ° embo(h
seem to be the antithesis o f the m etropolitan centres from which h"4 Wbictl
The more the Australian past is fashioned to m eet this demand tf^ 'Г3' е1
w ill be
np its tendency
tpnHpnrv tn rpnrptpnt A
to represent Auctraiiane .1
ustralians to themselves th Emater
cracked look in g-glass o f the A nglo-A m erican gaze in its tendency to cast the
national character in the form o f a heroic and primitive simplicity - th'
C rocodile D undee factor.
If this is cause for concern, it is because more than history is at stake in
how the past is represented. The shape o f the thinkable future depends on
how the past is portrayed and on how its relations to the present are depicted.
N ietzsch e recognised this in his com m ents on those ‘historical men’ who
‘only look backward at the process to understand the present and stimulate
their longing for the future’ (N ietzsche 1976: 14). Yet he also spoke ot an
antiquarian attitude to the past w hich, valuing all that is ‘small and limited,
m ouldy and o b so lete’, organizes the past as a refuge from the present in which
the conservative and reverent soul o f the antiquarian builds a secret nest
(ibid.: 24). Both orientations are evident in the structure of the
past - a future-orientated trajectory governed by the rhetoric of us
unending developm ent and the preservation o f the past as an enclav ^^
and retreat from, the present. Foucault, echoing N ietzsche s ^ ntl4sU
c|ie caiied
tw o orientations, recom m ends instead the virtues o f what 1е^ оП wjthin
‘effectiv e h istory’. Such a history w ould not aim to inscribe t to
an uninterrupted narrative o f its self-developm ent. ^ ather’poucaUit arg“e’;
disrupt such pretended continuities, and it would
because know ledge is not made for understanding. ^ conscious ^
(Foucault 1980a: 154). Perhaps the cause o f a critical natl°J \cj, cut inI0‘
ih<
would be best served by the institution o f a public P‘lstcurrently e^ ° '
thus questioned, those narratives o f nationing which c fjty of ?°v
greatest cultural w eight rather than lending them the a
mental benediction.
162
ж
ART AND TH EO RY
The politics of the invisible
‘The Historical G enesis o f a Pure A esth etic’, Pierre Bourdieu
In liis essay - fu, thumbnail sketch o f the historical p rocesses in volved in the
offers a U o f an aesthetic structure o f vision - what Bourdieu ca lls the ‘pure
f o r m a ti° n
,i w h ic h the work o f art is attended to in and for itself. The
• tinn of the categories governing how w orks o f art are named or
oreanizaiion i c.
b e l l e d Bourdieu argues, plays an important role within these p rocesses and
he s u g g e s t s that the term ‘theory’ m ight aptly be used to describe these
a i e g o r i e s , the manner o f their functioning and their effects. ‘T h eory’, he
w r ite s , ‘ i s a particularly apt word because w e are dealing with seein g -
theorem -. and of making others s e e ’ (Bourdieu 1987: 203).
To analyse the historical p rocesses through w hich the ‘pure g a z e ’ is
constituted is thus, in part, to trace the form ation o f those spaces and
institutions in which works o f art are'so assem bled, arranged, named and
classified as to be rendered v isib le as, precisely, ‘a r t ’ just as it is also to
«amine those forces which produce spectators capable o f recogn izing and
Ppreciating those works as such. In truth, these are tw o sides o f the same
c°m, the production o f ‘a r t’ and the production o f aesthetes form ing two
E * - d ' ale ctic through w hich, as Marx argued in the G ru n d riss e , the
alwaySSeS ? roc*uc'n8 an object for consum ption and a consum ing subject
of excharf3n'Ze аПС* be^et one anotber in the form s required for the circuit
ВоадеиП ^ .-Ь-it:^ ееП them t0 be co m Pleted (see M arx 1973: 9 0 - 2 ). As
1 puts
The
anino I ' " 06 °* tbe worlc
meani art as being im m ediately endow ed with
ana value i
funded asn- ' UIUe ls a resuh o f the accord betw een the tw o m utually
and th e artistic ft°f tbe same historical institution: the cultured habitus
** •fevinbni;„
symbolic Coh‘
,e 'tb ^ ‘ven that the work o f art ex ists as such, (nam ely
U|ic obieet i
er|ded by ‘|ect endowed w ith m eaning and value) only if it is
u
^ttpetence wh'S|!eCtat0rS Po sse ssing the d isposition and the aesthetic
fie Esthete’s e J , Y 6 ,tacitly required, one cou ld then say that it is
Ut‘ 0ne ,
must aIsoWb'° b const*tutes the work o f art as a work o f art.
о rernember im m ediately that this is p ossib le only to
163
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

the extent that the aesthete h im self is the product o f a long exposu
to artworks.
(Bourdieu 1987: 202)

It is, however, theory - in.this case, a d istinctive language o f art -

m ediates the relations betw een the aesthete and the work o f art offe 'Ctl
through its categories (o f art’s autonomy, o f creativity, o f the irredu1^'^8’
individuality o f the artist, etc.), a m eans w hereby the works on display c. e
be construed and experienced as the m anifestations o f a higher order reap311
( ‘a r t’ ) o f w hich they are but the tangible exp ression s. In this way, theor
present just as much in the principles governing the display o f art works "
in the aesth ete’s head - organizes a particular set o f relations between the
visib le (the works o f art on sh ow ) and the in visib le ( ‘a r t’) such that the former
is perceived and utilized as a route to com m union with the latter. Yet th is
theoretical ordering o f the relations betw een the v isib le and an invisible also
plays a role in organizing a distinction betw een those who can and those
cannot see; or, m ore accurately, betw een those w ho can only see what is
v isib ly on display and those w ho are additionally able to see the invisible
realities ( ‘a r t’ ) w hich the theory pqsits as being accessib le via the objects
exhibited.
This helps to account for the different attitudes o f different types o f visitors
to the use o f lab els, gu idebook s or other kinds o f contextualizing and
explanatory m aterials in art m useum s. In their now cla ssic study The Love of
A rt, Bourdieu and Darbel note that w ork in g-class visitors typically responded
m ost p ositively to the provision o f guidebooks or directions as to the best
route to take through an art m useum . It may w ell be, Bourdieu and Darbel
argue, that such clarifications are not alw ays able to ‘g iv e “ the e y e ” to those
w ho do not “ s e e ” ’ (Bourdieu and Darbel 1991: 53). N one the less, their
presence in a gallery is sym bolically important just as is the demand for them
by w orking-class visitors in that both testify to the p ossib ility that the gap
betw een the visib le and the in visib le may be bridged by m eans o f appropriate
trainings. If, by contrast, and as their evid en ce su ggested , the cultivated
classes are the m ost h ostile to such attempts to make a r t more accessible,-
Bourdieu and Darbel argue that this is because such ped agogic props detract
from that charism atic id eology w hich, in m aking ‘an encounter with a work
o f art the occasion o f a descent o f grace (c h a ris m a ), provides the privileged
w ith the m ost “ indisputable” justification for their cultural privilege, while
m aking them forget that the perception o f the work o f art is necessaril)
inform ed and therefore learnt’ (ibid.: 56).
It w ould, o f cou rse, be w rong to etern alize the findings o f this study
esp ecia lly in view o f the econ om istic leanings w hich characterize B o u r d ie u
view o f the relations betw een class and culture. A s John Frow has shown-
there is a tendency in B ou rd ieu ’s work to polarize aesthetic d is p o s it t
around tw o options - the popular and the bourgeois - w h ose cohere

1 64
 ART AND THEORY
г
|L es from Pre'g 'ven class log ics on which they depend (Frow 1987).
^еГthis as d т а У’ *s a tendency w hich runs against the grain o f B ourdieu’s
g e n e r a l argument that the characteristics o f the artistic field, and thus
more ' г , „ , ж|__A • ___ j • _ • j ____ j _ _______ j ; _______ • ____ | _______ л
t h e s p e c i f i c com p eten ces that individuals need to acquire in order to

°* thIve its in visib le sign ifican ces, are a m utable product o f the relations
PeС J een t[je « .* 4
practices o f art I 1 rv /л n г 1 л л o i p o i i r e i л / о o n t o n o r i a e
galleries, the discursive categories tthat n n t о r o rr\ n r l o
are made
he .jabie by art theory, the m eans by w hich these are circulated, and the form s
J' a '' t r a i n i n g and fam iliarization available in educational institutions. A
of art recent finding, made som e tw enty years later and in Australia, that
111 nort for the v ie w that art g alleries should provide explanatory and
Sontextualizing material -was strongest on the part o f those with the highest
ieve!s of educational attainment, may thus be evidence o f an artistic field
jiich is differently structured in these regards (see Bennett and Frow 1991).
Even so, the more general point 1 am concerned to make here rem ains valid:
that in art galleries, theory, understood as a particular set o f explanatory and
ev a lu a tiv e categories and principles o f classification , m ediates the relations
b e t w e e n the visitor and the art on display in such a way that, for som e but
not for others, seein g the art exhibited serves as a m eans o f se ein g thro u g h
those artefacts to see an in visib le order o f sign ifican ce that they have been
arranged to represent.
The sam e is true o f all collectin g institutions. In C o llec to rs a n d C u rio sities,
K rzysztof Pomian defines a collection as ‘a set o f natural or artificial objects,
kept te m p o ra rily or perm anently out o f the econ om ic circuit, afforded special
protection in en closed places adapted specifically for that purpose and put on
display’ (Pomian 1990: 9). Pom ian defines such objects as sem iophores - that
is, as ob jects prized for their capacity to produce m eaning rather than for their
usefulness - and, fn asking what it is that the* objects contained in different
kinds o f collection have in com m on which accounts for their being selected
as sem io p h o res, con clud es that their h om ogeneity con sists in their ability to
be involved in an exchan ge process betw een visib le and in visib le worlds.
Whatever the differen ces betw een them in other respects, then, the objects
boused and displayed in collectin g institutions - w hether m useum s, tem ples
or cabinets o f cu riosities - function in an analogous manner. In com prising
a. domain o f the v isib le, they derive their sign ifican ce from the different
invisibles’ they construct and from the w ays in w hich they m ediate these to
. e sp e c ta to rs. Or, to put this another way, what can be seen in such
lnstitutions is significant only because it offers a glim p se o f what cannot be
Ф П’ When, in the classical world, offerin gs intended for the gods were put
Public display, the result, Pom ian thus argues, w as that:

hese offerings could continue to function as interm ediaries for this

w°rld and the next, the sacred and the secular, w hile at the sam e time
in stitu tin g . at the very heart o f the secular world, sym bols o f the
tant, the hidden, the absent. In other w ords, they acted as go-

165
* * *
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

betw eens betw een those w ho gazed upon them and the invisible fr0
w hence they cam e.
(Pom ian 1990: 22)

In the modern history m useum , by contrast, objects are typically displa

with a v ie w to rendering present and v isib le that w hich is absent ^
invisible: the past history o f a particular people, nation, region or s ^
group. This organization o f a new in v isib le was the com bined resu lt of l
ch oice o f a new set o f sem iophores (period costu m es, for exam ple) and 6
the display o f old sem iophores in new arrangem ents (the tombs o f notable^
arranged in ch ron ological su ccessio n ) through w hich a national p ast « S
could be rendered m aterially present through an assem blage o f its a r te fa c t^
remnants.
H ow ever m uch truth there m ight be in these generalizations, though the
orders o f the v isib le and the in v isib le are not connected in an invariant
manner. Rather, the w ays in w hich the form er m ediate the relations between
the latter and the spectator depend on the role o f sp ecific id eologies of the
visib le. At tim es, different id eo lo g ies o f the v isib le m ay even inform the
arrangem ent o f the sam e co llec tio n , g iv in g it a m u lti-levelled structure.
A lexandre Lenoir thus arranged his co llectio n at the M usee des monuments
fran§ais from tw o points o f view . From a political point o f view which
echoed revolutionary con ception s o f the need for transparency in public life,
he thus argued that a m useum should be established with sufficient splendour
and m agnificence to ‘speak to all e y e s ’ (p a r le r a to u s les y e u x ) (cited in
V idler 1986: 141). From this point o f view , the in visib le which the Musee
des m onum ents fran9ais allow ed everyone to see w as the history o f the French
state, its glory made m anifest in the ch ron ological su ccession o f tombs and
relics that had been rescued from revolutionary vandalism in order, precisely,
to organize a national past and render it p ublicly v isib le and present. As
M ichelet subsequently described the m useum :

The eternal continuity o f the nation w as reproduced there. France a t last

could see herself, her ow n developm ent; from century to century, from
man to man and from tomb to tom b, she could in som e way e x a m i n e
her ow n con scien ce.
(Cited in H askell 1971: 115)

From the point o f view o f the m u seu m ’s role as a v eh icle f o r public

instruction, however, its artefacts were so arranged, and its a r c h i t e c t u r e so
contrived, as to g iv e a ccess to a second-order in visib le: the p r o g r e s s
civ iliza tio n towards the Enlightenm ent. Conferring a v isib ility on 1
developm ental conception o f tim e, A nthony V idler has argued, was the r e s
o f an architectural arrangem ent w hich, as the v isito r’s route led c h r o n o
lo g ica lly from one period display to another, allow ed for a p r o g r e s S l
increase in the amount o f natural light available to illum inate t h e e x h i

166
 ART AND THEORY

y r r i b o l i z i n g man's journey from darkness towards t h e l i g h t (V idler

tliUs -jn passing from room to room , as Lenoir put it, the m ore the visitor
nte vers les sie c le s q u i se ra p p ro c h e n t d u n d tre , p lu s la lu m ie re
.rernonle
, audit dans les m o n u m en ts p u b lic s, co m m e s i la vue du so le il nc p o u v a it
' ^ e n i f 4U’** l ’h °m m e in stru it’ (cited in V idler 1986: 145)
early years o f their establishm ent, public m useum s were centrally
r n e d with this latter kind o f invisible: that is, with an order o f
C° nC f i c a n c e which, rather than being thought o f as spontaneously available
S'"the inspection o f all, was seen as requiring a calculated arrangement to
10 v i t visible. In this respect, those critiques w hich attribute a fetishism o f
'he o b j e c t to nineteenth-century m useum exhibition practices quite often m iss
Ijeir mark. For, by the end o f the century, at least in natural history and
nthropology m useum s, the objects on display were far from being regarded
being m eaningful and significant in and o f them selves. Rather, they were
often viewed as m erely convenient props for illustrating - m aking visible -
the ordering o f form s o f life or p eop les proposed by scientific principles o f
classification, a view n icely encapsulated in G eorge Brown G o o d e’s fam ous
maxim that a m useum is ‘a collection o f instructive labels illustrated by w ell-
selected sp ecim ens’.
Similar reasoning had been applied to art galleries when their potential to
function as instrum ents for p ub lic instruction had been the paramount
consideration governing their conception and design . In 1842, a year after a
House of Commons S elect C om m ittee had recom m ended that all its pictures
should be clearly labelled and that a cheap inform ation booklet be produced
for its visitors, Mrs Jam eson thus sum m arized the historicist principles o f the
chronological hang which had proved so influential in the d esign o f L ondon’s
National Gallery:

A g allery lik e this - a national gallery - is not m erely for the pleasure
and c iv ilis a tio n o f our p eop le, but also for their instruction in the
significance o f art. How far the history o f the progress o f painting is
connected with the history o f manners, m orals, and governm ent, and
above all, with the history o f our religion m ight be exem plified visibly
by a c o lle c tio n o f specim ens in painting, from the earliest tim es o f its
revival, tracing pictorial representations o f sacred subjects from the
ancient Byzantine types . . . through the gradual developm ent o f taste
ln design a n d sensibility in colour. . . . Let us not despair o f p ossessin g
at som e future period a series o f pictures so arranged . . . as to lead the
enquiring mind to a study o f com parative style in art; to a know ledge
the g ra d u a l steps in which it advanced and declined; and hence to a
c°n sid e ra tio n o f the causes, lyin g deep in the history o f nations and o f
° Ur sp ecies, w hich led to both.
(Cited in Martin 1974, no. 187: 2 7 9 -8 0 )
Of
c°urse, the chronological hang was typically not just historicist but also

167
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

nationalist in conception. If, as Carol Duncan and A lan W allach havP

christened them, ‘universal survey m u seu m s’ display art historically e a Ptlv
v iew to m aking the progress o f civ iliza tio n v isib le through its a
artkf
achievem ents, the role o f the particular ‘h o st’ nation in question is aiw
accorded a privileged position such that the state acquires a visibility <
ow n in and am idst p rogress’s relentless advance. Duncan and W a lla c h ofthits
argue, taking the post-revolutionary transformation o f the Louvre as th
exam ple, that art, in being transferred from royal co llectio n s into the 'Г
space o f the public m useum , could then be used to make v is ib le
transcendent values the state claim s to em b o d y ’ and so lend ‘c re d ib ility \
the b elie f that the state exists at the sum m it o f m ankind’s highest attainment ■
(Duncan and W allach 1980: 457).
In the case o f France, sim ilar principles applied to the developm ent, in the
N apoleon ic period, o f a public m useum system in the provinces in view of
its dependency on strongly centralized form s o f support and direction. Thus
in his study o f the e n v o i system w hereby works o f art were made available
on loan from national collectio n s to provincial art m useum s, D aniel Sherman
has show n how the primary purpose o f this schem e w as to make the state as
such v isib le throughout France. ‘It w ould be on ly a m ild exaggeration’,
Sherman thus writes, ‘to say that the state attached less importance to the
pictures them selves than to the labels on them that said “ D on de l ’Empereur”
(gift o f the Emperor) or later, more m odestly but no less clearly, “ Depot de
l ’Etat” (deposit o f the S tate)’ (Sherm an 1989: 14). It w as sim ilarly important
that, in the system o f inspection set up to supervise the standards o f those
m useum s w hich took part in the e n v o i system , considerable emphasis was
placed on the desirability o f w ell-ordered, clearly labelled exhibitions from
the point o f v iew o f their capacity to instruct. ‘If a m useum does not, through
its m ethodical arrangem ent, facilitate general in stru ction,’ the inspector
Charvet thus wrote o f the art m useum in Roanne, ‘if it is nothing but a place
where objects o f artistic or historical interest or cu riosities are assembled, it
cannot attain p recisely that elevated goal that the curator has so w ell detailed
in the preface to his in ven tory’ (cited in ibid.: 76).
However, Sherman also throws useful light on the processes w h e r e b y , m
its later developm ent, the ethos o f public instruction that had initially f u e l l e d
the public art m useum declined as such institutions - to a greater degree than
any other m useum type - cam e to play an increasingly crucial role in the
process through which relations o f social distinction were o r g a n i z e d am
reproduced. Three aspects o f these developm ents m ight usefully be com
mented on here.
First, in association with the ‘H aussm annization’ of, initially, Paris an '
subsequently, F rance’s major provincial cities, debates regarding suita
locations for art m useum s took on a new aspect. B y the 1860s and 1870s.
premium w as no longer placed on the degree to w hich the general acce^nt
ibility o f an art m useum ’s location cou ld enhance its utility as a n in str u m

168
 ART AND THEORY

jjc instruction. To the contrary, as a part o f what w ould now adays be

of P“ . :ty anim ation’ strategies, new art m useum s - in Bordeaux, M arseilles
Tailed .......................... .............................................
L " R o u e n - were typically situated in parts o f the city where they might
aIlC* ''a S marker institutions targeting hitherto derelict parts o f cities for
/e
serV^arnnies o f b ourgeoisification. In m aking such areas fashionab le, art
Pr^ ms attracted bourgeois residents to their neighbouring suburbs result-
01115 a rise in property values w hich forced w orking-class residents to seek
modation elsew h ere. In this way art m useum s furnished a crucial
aCC0Ionent o f the material and sym bolic infrastructure around which new
C° с n f c la s s -b a s e d residential segregation were developed.
tormb
It is then, sm all wonder that the bourgeois should w ish his or her status
be recognized when visitin g art m useum s. R ecognition o f such distinction,
however, became increasingly difficult to secure - and partly because o f the
very success o f art m useum s and kindred institutions in reform ing the
manners, the standards o f dress and behaviour, o f the m useum -visiting public.
Although the point cannot be made incontrovertibly, it is lik ely that the
opening o f such m useum s as the Louvre and the British M useum did not
spontaneously result in their being regularly used and visited by the urban
middle classes. To the degree that such m useum s could be and were visited
by artisans and workers w ho, if not unw ashed, were often rude and boister­
ous, then so, as M ichael Shapiro has argued, the norm s o f behaviour that
were later to facilitate m id d le-class participation in m useum s had yet to
emerge (Shapiro 1990). T hose norm s were on ly gradually fashioned into
being through a history o f rules and regulations, o f prescriptions and
proscriptions, by m eans o f w hich new publics were tutored into cod es o f
civilized and decorous behaviour through w hich they w ere to be rendered
appropriately receptive to the uplifting influence o f culture. A s M ichael
Shapiro puts the point: .

M id d le -c la ss audiences learned that the restraint o f em otion was the

outward expression o f the respect for quality, the deference to the best
dem anded o f those who view ed objects in public places. Exhibitions
thus b e c a m e textbooks in public civ ility , p laces w here the visitors
learned to accord their counterparts recognition w hile avoiding m odes
° f sp ee c h and conduct that intruded upon another’s experience.
(Shapiro 1990: 236)

But what could be learned by the m iddle cla sses could also be learned by
the
w orking classes. Indeed, in the conception o f those w ho v iew ed m useum s
as
s lnstruments o f social reform , it was intended that they should function as
i SS em ulation w ithin w hich visitors from the low er cla sses m ight
and h VC t*le 'r Puk*‘c manners and appearance by im itating the form s o f dress
rejat ehaviour o f the m iddle classes. The con sequ en ce, v iew ed in the light o f
less 6C* ^eve'°P m ents over the sam e period, w as that different cla sses becam e
Atsibly distinct from one another.

169
 POLICIES AND POLITICS

The developm ent o f m ass-m anufactured cloth in g, Richard S e n n et

1 ----------1. i ■ - -i-
argued, resulted, in the -----------------1
second ihalf ' -1
o f the ■ -
nineteenth 1 •
century, in ha
a tend 4,s
towards increased hom ogeneity and neutrality o f cloth in g as being fash-*10^
ahlp
able rtimp
cam e tn to mpQn
mean ‘to Iptirn
learn hnu/ how tnto tnnn
tone Hou/n
down on
o noe ’o ’
’s appearance, to be*1'011'
unrem arkable’ (Sennett 1978: 164). The m ore standardized clothing be c°mi
however, the greater w as the attention paid to those trivial details3*116'
m inutiae o f costu m e, through w hich, to the discerning ey e, s o c ia l * ttle
m ight be sym bolized. It is in this light, D aniel Sherm an suggests that31**8
m ight understand the passion with w hich, in the 1880s and 1890s, midd^
class visitors resisted attem pts by French provincial m useum s to introdu^
regulations requiring that um brellas be checked in rather than car
through the galleries. For, Sherm an argues, although umbrella-carrying №a
a habit that had spread to all cla sses, ‘the shape and condition o f an umbrell-
cou ld provide clu es about the social status o f the person carryino jt-
(Sherm an 1989: 228; see also Sherman 1987). The um brella was, in short a
visib le sign o f distinction, and the stru ggle (largely su ccessfu l) that was
w aged to retain the right to carry um brellas reflected the degree to which the
space o f the art m useum had becom e in creasingly m ortgaged to practices of
class differentiation.
If, in this way, the bourgeois public rendered itse lf v isib ly distinct in a way
that was m anifest to the gaze o f others, it was also able to render itself
distinctive in its own ey es by organizing an in visib le w hich it alone could
see. B y the late nineteenth century, to com e to Sherm an’s third point, the
earlier enthusiasm for rationally ordered, clearly lab elled displays no longer
applied to the new provincial art m useum s constructed in this period. Instead,
under the influence o f a revival o f Baroque aesthetics, pictures from different
sch ools, types or periods w ere juxtaposed with one another in densely packed
d isplays w hich virtually covered entire exhibition areas. Reflecting their
concern to p lease rather than instruct the public, lab elling was a low priority
for the new m useum s o f this period with the result that they either lacked
descriptive labels for several years after their opening or provided such labels
in such a m inim alist fashion that they tended to institutionalize rather than
overcom e the cultural divide betw een their cultivated visitors and (for such
is how it w as con ceived ) the residue o f the general public.
In recom m ending that there should be labels indicating the artist a n d
subject for every painting, the director o f the Rouen m useum thus c o n t e n d e d
that the result w ould be ‘a kind o f abridged catalogue - not enough fo r re
art lovers, it ’s true, but enough to dissem inate som e “ glim m erings o f t r u t h
am ong the m ass o f the public, w ho are only interested in a work w h e n the)
know the subject or when a fam ous name halts them en route and forces t
adm iration’ (cited in Sherm an 1989: 2 1 7 -1 8 ). A s Sherman a r g u e s ,1^
recognized a d ivision in the m useum ’s public in a manner which ‘emphasts
rather than d ispelled its le ss educated m em bers’ inferior status’ (ibid.: 2 ^
W hen endorsing the view that a m useum should be regarded as ‘a colR c

1 70
 ART AND THEORY

Г tructive labels illustrated by w ell-selected sp ecim en s’. Henry Flower

of 'nS exem pted art m useum s from the requirements this entailed. It is true
fad n regarded art m useum s as having further to go to meet these standards
that museum types, com plaining o f their tendency to display too many
^ аП o f art, m c ° ng ruously juxtaposed to one another in unsuitable and
< contextualized settings. However, Flow er could see no reason why art
P°°eums should be exem pt from the general requirem ents he believed needed
1,111 т е 1 if public collectin g institutions were to function effec tiv e ly as
10. j Cjes for instructing the general public. ‘Correct classification , good
ve iling, isolation o f each object from its neighbours, the provision o f a
la nble°background, and above all o f a position in which it can be readily
pd distinctly seen ,’ he argued, ‘are absolute requisites in art m useum s as
well as in those o f natural h istory’ (Flow er 1898: 33).
It is, perhaps, a long way from the decontextualizing Baroque principles
of display Sherman describes - and which F low er was reacting to - to the
subsequent history o f the m odernist hang in w hich the idea o f art’s autonom y
was given a spatial and architectural em bodim ent. For it is only with the
advent of m odernism that the art gallery space assum es a value in and o f itself
as that which, in endow ing the work o f art with an illusion o f separateness
and autonomy, also then requires spectators capable o f responding to it in its
own right. ‘The ideal g a lle ry ’, as Brian O ’D oherty puts it, ‘subtracts from
the artwork all clu es that interfere with the fact that it is “ art”. The work is
isolated from everything that w ould detract from its ow n evaluation o f its e lf’
(O’Doherty 1976: 14). Be this as it may, one can see the respects in w hich
the late nineteenth-century display practices Sherman d escrib es begin to
prepare the ground for m odernism in their com m itm ent to the organization
of a new invisible — “'a r t' - w hich only the co g n o sc e n ti could catch a glim pse
of. In the initial phases o f their developm ent, public art m useum s, it was
suggested earlier, served, through the arrangement o f their exh ib its, to make
•he history o f the state or nation, or the progress o f civiliza tio n , visible. B y
the late nineteenth century, in a manner w hich differentiated them sharply
trom other types o f m useum , and continues to do so, the relations betw een
•he visible and the in visib le in art m useum s becam e in creasingly s e lf­
-clo sin g as the works on display form ed part o f a coded form o f inter-
h-xtuality through which an autonom ous world o f 'a r t' was made v isib le to
° se who were culturally equipped to see it.
f0r .a.§eneal°g y for the role o f theory in the modern art m useum is called
j .’ 11 ls>perhaps, along the lines sketched above that one m ight be found. If
visibtrue ° f aH collectin g institutions that they so arrange the field o f the
e as to allow an apprehension o f som e further order o f significance that
0rgan'' Str*Ct*y sPeaking, be seen, the art museum is unique in sim ultaneously
inv .. IZlng a d ivision betw een those who can and those cannot see the
ipai^e , e significances o f the 'a r t' to which it constantly beckons but never
manifest. Far less freely and publicly available than the artefacts on
 POLICIES AND POLITICS ART AND THEORY

display in the art m useum , the aesthetic theories o f m odernism and seUm d idactics and hence to the different publics w hich different
m odernism se lec tiv ely m ediate the relations betw een the visitor ind°St of т и с5 im ply and produce. This m eans that the place o f theory in the art
m useum in providing - for som e - a m eans o f reading the invisible - didaC ' has alw ays to be considered in relation to the role o f schooling in
intertextual relations through which the works on display can be expeHe'd °f nlUSt'e d u c tio n and distribution o f artistic trainings and com p eten ces. W hen
as ' a r t ’. M oreover, this affects the production as w ell as the c o n su m p tio ^ the S p oolin g system fails to work m ethodically and system atically to bring
artistic objects to the degree that m uch artistic production is n o w '0 n °f the SCd viduals into contact with art and different w ays o f interpreting it,
m ission ed by, or is m ade with a v iew to its eventual installation in ° m' a» lllC.eU and Darbel argue, it abdicates the responsibility, w hich is its alone,
m useum s. This institutional com p licity o f art with the art museum has' ^ ^ „ a s s - p r o d u c in g com petent individuals endow ed with the schem es o f
Burn argues, ‘created a need for affirm ative (and self- affirm ing) theorySJ 3" °f Option, thought and expression which are the condition for the appropri-
art increasingly “ spoken fo r” by the new writing w hich has evolved its реГСе o f cultural g o o d s’ (Bourdieu and Darbel 1991: 67). To the degree that
academ ic form s o f “ disinform ation” about works o f art’ (Burn 1989- 5) ° ^ S c h o o lin g Sy S t e m at present accom plishes this, any attempt to renovate the
O f course, this is not to suggest that there is a sim ple or single ‘politics П° m u s e u m ’s space theoretically and p o litica lly m ust sim u ltan eou sly be
the in v isib le’ associated with the m odern art m useum . To the contrary it - ^ mitted to d eveloping the m eans o f instruction which w ill help bridge the
clear that those critiques o f the art m useum which have been developed fr0ni ^ b e t w e e n the in visib le orders o f sign ifican ce it constructs and the social
positions outside it have sought to p o liticize the m useum space precisely by d istrib u tion o f the capacity to see those in visib le significances.
pointing to the respects in w hich, in m aking ' a r t ’ v isib le to som e but not to
others, it sim ultaneously occlu des a v iew o f the diverse social histories in
which the assem bled artefacts have been im plicated. The fem inist critiques
o f R oszika Parker and G riselda P ollock (1 9 8 2 ) and the critical ethnographic
p erspectives o f James C lifford (1 9 8 8 ) are cases in point. In both cases,
moreover, their im plications for the exhibition practices o f art museums are
the same: that the artefacts assem bled in them should be so arranged as to
produce, and offer access to, a different in visib le - w om en ’s exclusion from
art, for exam ple, or the role o f m useum practices in the aestheticization of
the prim itive.
It is, however, crucial to such interventions that they should take into
account the m ore general ‘p o litics o f the in v isib le ’ associated with the
form o f the art m useum if they are not to be lim ited, in their accessibility
and therefore in their influence, to those elite social strata w ho have acquired
a com p eten ce in the language and theory o f ' a r t ’. T his is not to suggest
that ex istin g form s o f aesth etic training should be m ade more generally
available w ithout, in the p rocess, th em selves being m odified. Rather, my
point is that those interventions into the space o f the art museum which seek
to take issu e with the ex c lu sio n s and m arginalizations which that space
constructs, w ill need, in constructing another in v isib le in the place of •
to g ive careful consideration to the discu rsive form s and pedagogic pr°Ps
and d evices that m ight be used to m ediate those in v isib les in such a way-
” to
to recall Bourdieu and D arbel, as to be able, indeed, to ‘g iv e “ the eye
those w ho cannot “ s e e ” ’.
The theories which inform such interventions m ay w ell be c o m p l eN
However, the scope and reach o f their effec tiv ity w ill depend on the deg
to which such theories are able to be translated into a didactics that is 111
generally com m unicable. The question o f the role o f theory in art muscu
is thus not one that can be posed abstractly; it is inevitably tied to quest’

172 173
 Part III
TEC H N O LO G IES
OF PROGRESS
 7

M U S E U M S AND P R O G R E S S
Narrative, ideology, perform ance

|nhis account o f the m ethods o f V oltaire’s Zadig, w ho astounded his listeners

his ability to visu alize an animal from the tracks it had left behind, Thomas
Huxley likened Z a d ig ’s con clusions to ‘retrospective p rop h ecies’ (H uxley
1882: 132). A nticipating the objection that this m ight seem a contradiction
in terms, Huxley argued that prophetic reasoning rests on the sam e procedures
whether they be applied retrospectively or prospectively. For ‘the essen ce o f
the prophetic operation’, as he put it, ‘does not lie in its backward or forward
relation to the course o f tim e, but in the fact that it is the apprehension o f
that which lies out o f the sphere o f im m ediate know ledge; the seein g o f that
which to the natural sense o f the seer is in v isib le ’ (ibid.: 132). B etw een the
two cases, then, the process rem ains the same; it is only the relation to tim e
that is altered.
Yet, from the point o f view o f the various historical scien ces in w hich, over
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this m ethod was applied, the relation
to time was crucial. In history, geology, archaeology, and palaeontology,
Carlo Ginzburg argues, ‘Z ad ig’s m ethod’ - ‘that is, the m aking o f retro­
spective predictions’ - predom inated. W here causes cannot be repeated, as
Ginzburg puts it, ‘there is no alternative but to infer them from their e ffe c ts ’
•Ginzburg 1980: 23). How ever, in translating ‘Z a d ig ’s m eth od ’ into the
conjectural paradigm ’ w hich he argues governs the procedures o f the
historical scien ces, Ginzburg loses som ething o f the stress w hich H uxley had
Placed on the visu alizin g capacities o f those scien ces. ‘A ny scen e from deep
tlme’, as Martin Rudwick puts it, ‘em bodies a fundam ental problem: it must
make visible what is really in visib le. It m ust give us the illusion that we are
W|hiesses to a scen e that we cannot really see; more precisely, it must make
virtual w itn e sses” to a scen e that vanished long before there were any
ujtian beings to see it’ (R udw ick 1992: 1).
udwick’s concern here is with the form ation o f the modern d isciplines o f
its 1St0r^’ Perhaps the m ost crucial o f which was palaeontology in view o f
narrrole *n connecting geology and natural history and so m ediating those
histatlVes concerned with the history o f the earth and those telling o f the
ГУ of life on earth. It is, accordingly, to C uvier’s work that he looks for

177
 T E C H N O L O G IE S OF PRO G R ESS

a m odel o f the new procedures w hich cam e to characterize these disc

In perm itting the reconstruction o f extin ct form s o f life on the basis of
anatom ical rem ains, C uvier had made it p ossib le for a w hole new 1Пе'г
objects to be drawn into the sphere o f visibility. ‘The establishm ent of' °f
reality o f extinction, notably by C uvier,’ Rudw ick argues, ‘provided f0
first tim e the raw m aterial for com n osin n i l l u s t r a t i o n s t h a t ,Г ^е
scen es significantly, and interestingly, different from scen es o f even the Piet
exotic parts o f the present w orld ’ (R udw ick 1992: 56). most
In describing Z ad ig’s m ethod, H uxley proposes a n eologism - ‘would th
there were such a word as “ back teller!” ’ - as the best way o f describing th*
procedures o f ‘the retrospective prophet’ w ho ‘affirm s that so many hours e
years ago, such and such things were to be seen ’ (H uxley 1882: 133). gy ^
tim e H uxley published his essay in S cien c e a n d C u ltu re, perhaps the most
influential ‘b ack teller’ o f all - Conan D o y le ’s Sherlock H olm es - was in the
process o f establishing his reputation in the pages o f T h e S tra n d magazine
A s a narrative form constructed around the provision o f a trail o f c lu e s and
their delayed decipherm ent, the m ethods o f d etective fiction are - as Ginzburg
has argued - sim ilar to those o f the scien ces governed by the conjectural
paradigm. In a good deal o f the d iscu ssion o f the genre, the emphasis has
fallen on the sim ilarities betw een H o lm e s’s m ethods and those o f the medical
scien ces (see Sebeok and U m iker-Sebeok 1983). But its relations to the
historical scien ces are also clear. Like the p alaeon tologist, the detective must
reconstruct a past event - the crim e - on the basis o f its remnants; and, just
as for the p alaeon tologist, bones m ay w ell be ‘all that rem ains’ for this
purpose. ‘A detective p olicem an ’, as H u xley put the point, ‘discovers a
burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a m ental process identical with
that by w hich C uvier restored the extin ct anim als o f Montmartre from
fragm ents o f their b o n e s’ (H uxley 1895: 4 5 -6 ).
Yet if the d etective is a ‘backteller’ and if, as B oris Eichenbaum argued,
the detective story is governed by the art o f backward construction, the effect
o f this on the reader is, ideally, to propel him or her through the narrative
with as much expedition as p ossib le, driven by an epistem ophelia that is
unquenchable until the reader know s ‘w hodunit’ (see Eichenbaum 1971)-
The narrative m achinery o f d etective fiction may be constantly b a c k w a r d -
glancing as it infers causes from their effec ts and m akes visible the crime and
its perpetrator from the traces he or she has left behind, but it constantly
m oves the reader forward.
The m useum was another ‘b ack teller’, a narrative m achinery, with simil^
properties. In the n ew ly fashioned deep-tim es o f geo lo g y , archaeology a
palaeontology, new objects o f k now ledge were ushered forth into the sp
o f scien tific visibility. The m useum conferred a public v isib ility on t
objects o f know ledge. O f course, it w as not alone in doing so: by the 1
im aginative pictorial reconstructions o f prehistoric form s and scenes о
were w id ely available. But it w as in the m useum and its sibling’

1 78
t ‘hitio0 ’ ^ a t these new pasts were made visib le in the form o f re-
uctions based on their artefactual or osteo lo g ica l rem ains. 1 It w as
cOi>stf m useum that these new pasts were organized into a narrative
als°^j|iery through w hich, by m eans o f the techniques o f backward con-
maC (ion they linked together in sequences leading from the beginnings o f
C to present.
what are w e to make o f this? The answ er easiest to hand su ggests that,
influence o f evolutionary thought increased, m useum s cam e in-
aS ;ngly to em body or instantiate id eo lo g ies o f progress w hich, in enlisting
Cf • visitors as ‘p rogressive su b jects’ in the sense o f assigning them a place
an identity in relation to the processes o f progress’s on going advance­
ment also occluded a true understanding o f their relations to the conditions
f their social existen ce. This w ould be to construe the arrangem ents o f
objects within m useum s as the effec t o f a mental structure w hich achieves its
Influence on the individual through the u nconscious effects o f recognition
and m isrecognition to w hich it g ives rise. This view devalues the effects o f
the museum’s ow n specific m ateriality and the organization o f its practices.
It sees the artefactual field the m useum constructs as m erely one am ong m any
possible m eans or occasion s through w hich a particular m ental structure
impinges on the field o f subjectivity, im plying that the effects o f that structure
are the same w hatever the m eans used to realize it. A better way o f looking
at the matter, I want to suggest, is to view the narrative m achinery o f the
museum as providing a con text for a perform ance that w as sim ultaneously
bodily and m ental (and in w ays which question the terms o f such a duality)
inasmuch as the evolutionary narratives it instantiated were realized spatially
in the form o f routes that the visitor w as exp ected - and often ob liged - to
complete. ,
While, em pirically, the d ifferen ce betw een these two perspectives m ight
seem slight, the theoretical issu es at stake are considerable. D oes culture
work to secure its influence over form s o f thought and behaviour through the
operation o f m ental (representational) structures w hose constitution is view ed
as invariant across the different fields o f their application? Or is culture better
viewed as an assem blage o f tech n ologies w hich shape form s o f thought and
behaviour in w ays that are dependent on the apparatus-like qualities o f their
mechanisms? Behind these d ifferen ces, o f course, are different v iew s o f the
individual: as the invariant substratum o f all thought and experience, that is,
di 'Hdividual as subject, or the individual as the artefact o f historically
erentiated techniques o f person form ation.

°R g a n iz e d w a l k in g as e v o l u t io n a r y p r a c t ic e

as a ‘backteller’, 1 have argued, the m useum bestow s a so cia lly coded

retr °n various Pasts it organizes. It m aterially instantiates ‘the
° sPective p rop h ecies’ o f the various scien ces o f history and prehistory,

179
 T E C H N O L O G IE S OF PRO G R ESS

em bodying them in linked chains o f events — natural and human -

press ever-forw ard to the present point o f civ iliza tio n which is both^h'ch
' 0*1
ho'
culm ination and the point from w hich these connected sequences are '
retrospectively in telligib le. The degree to which this narrative m a c h i ^
was observable in the design and layout o f particular m useum s was var' ^
This is partly b ecau se few nineteenth-century m useum co llectio n s
constructed a b no vo and many, accordingly, still bore the traces o f e "рГе
system s o f classification . Equally important, the sp ecialization o f m use'^
types m eant that individual m useum s usually fo cu sed on a particul^
sequence w ithin the m useum ’s overall narrative m achinery, albeit that iT
in telligib ility o f that sequence depended on its being view ed in the li ^
o f the sequ en ces associated with other m useum types. The relations between
the tim es represented by these sequ en ces, that is to say, were ones o f mutua|
im plication.
This is clear from the manner in w hich, towards the end o f the century
G eorge Brown G ood e en visaged the relations betw een natural history
m useum s, anthropology m useum s, history m useum s and m useum s of art
Here is what he has to say about the natural history museum:

The M useum o f Natural H istory is the depository for objects which

illustrate the forces and phenom ena o f nature - the named units included
w ithin the three kingdom s, anim al, vegetab le and m ineral, - and
whatever illustrates their origin in tim e (or p h ylogen y), their individual
origin, d evelopm ent, grow th, function, structure, and geographical
distribution, past and present: also their relation to each other, and their
influence upon the structure o f the earth and the phenom ena observed
upon it!
(G oode 1896: 156)

The narratives o f natural history con n ect with those o f human history in view
o f the fact that ‘M useum s o f Natural History and A nthropology meet on
com m on ground in M an’, the form er usually treating ‘o f man in his relations
to other anim als, the latter o f man in his relations to other m en’ (G o o d e
1896: 156). The m useum o f anthropology, G oode then argues, ‘includes such
objects as illustrate the natural history o f Man, his classification in races and
tribes, his geographical distribution, past and present, and the origin, history
and m ethods o f his arts, industries, custom s and op inions, particularly among
prim itive and se m i-c iv ilised p e o p le s’ (ibid.: 155). The narratives o f archae
o logy are called on to bridge the gap betw een the fields o f anthropology an
history with the m useum o f anthropology extending its concerns to inciu
prehistoric archaeology w hile the history m useum extends its con cert
backwards to include those o f historic archaeology. A s for the m u s e u m
history proper, its purpose is to preserve ‘those material objects w hich a
associated with events in the history o f individuals, nations or races, or w
illustrate their condition at different periods in their national lif e ’ (ib id .:

180
 M USEUM S AND PROGRESS

■ u s e u m o f art, finally, is like the history museum but with a sp ecialist

tion. For 'the greater art collection s illustrate, in a manner peculiarly
°r'e'1 0wn, not only the su ccessiv e phases in the intellectual progress o f the
their. , races o f man, their sentim ents, passion s and m orals, but also their
dv1 a n d custom s, their dress, im plem ents and the m inor accessories o f their
/"'V
lia1bits often not otherw ise recorded’ (ibid.: 154).
CUfiach museum type, then, is like a chapter within a longer story, pressing
ards an end point w hich is sim ultaneously the point at w hich the next
*° ter com m ences. Like the reader in a d etective n ovel, it is towards this
C d point that the visitor’s activity is directed. This is not sim ply a matter o f
6 resentation. To the contrary, for the visitor, reaching the point at which
museum’s narrative culm inates is a matter o f doing as much as o f seein g,
phe narrative m achinery o f the m useum ’s ‘b ack tellin g’ took the form o f an
itinerary w hose com pletion was experienced as a task requiring urgency and
expedition. A lfred W allace thus com plained that casual visitors at natural
history m useum s often learned less than they m ight b ecause, he observed,
they seemed to find it alm ost im possible ‘to avoid the desire o f continually
going on to see what com es n ex t’ (W allace 1869: 250).
This aspect o f the m u seu m ’s narrative m achinery w as rarely w h o lly
visible in any particular institution. Just as their co llec tio n s were frequently
assembled from earlier o n es, so m any o f the b uildings in w hich the new
public museums were housed were not built sp ecifically for that purpose.
Marcin Fabianski’s survey o f the history o f m useum architecture su ggests
that it was not until the late eighteenth century that the m useum cam e to be
regarded as a sp ecific cultural institution in need o f a d istin ctive architecture
of its own (see Fabianski 1990). Prior to this period, valued co llec tio n s had
typically been housed in b uildings w hich were d esign ed for a variety o f
learned, scientific or artistic pursuits arid derived their m ain architectural
principles from the traditional form s associated with those pursuits. Even
where buildings were d esign ed sp ecifically with a m useum function in view ,
this often in volved a com bination o f functional and traditional elem en ts.
Schinkel’s A ltes M useum , A nthony V id ler thus notes, rested on a com bina-
tl0n ° f two principles w hich sim u ltan eou sly historicized art and eternalized
• the sequence o f room s en suite characteristic o f the palace turned
^ Useum and responding to the ch ron ological exh ib ition o f the objects; and
e temple o f m em ory or Pantheon, em blem o f Rom e but also o f the absolute
SuPrahistorical nature o f aesthetic quality, a rem inder o f the nature o f “ art”
'"•he historical work o f art’ (V idler 1992: 92).
the Sre m useum s were custom built, however, the com m itm ent to provide
(jg VlSltor with a linear route within w hich an evolutionary itinerary might
uC° mplished was a stron8 o n e- ^ts continuing influence in the twentieth
cemC
w r* *S ev*^ent 'n P*an ^arr ProPo s e d for a natural history m useum that
> among other things, offer the ‘open progression o f a straight line
 T E C H N O L O G I E S OF P R O G R E S S
representative o f the historical derivation o f the form and properties of 1
individual o b jects’: 4 ce than the sm allest circle w ould be capable o f affording. N ext in
The visitor w ould enter the m useum at the narrow end o f a long ha[
dedicated to a quasi-h istorical presentation o f the organisation 0f
nature. Som e attempt w ould be made to illustrate the structure o f matter
and the behaviour o f its elem entary com ponents. A selected exhibit of
naturally pure elem en ts and o f the isolated pure com pounds o f such
elem en ts, w hich w e call m inerals, w ould follow , with an exposition of
their manner o f form ation and transform ation. From m ineralogy, We
w ould proceed to the form ation, com p osition, and m etamorphosis of
rocks. . . . H aving surveyed the m aterials o f the earth, one would turn
to a consideration o f the geo-p h ysical forces acting with and upon these
substances, the m echanism s by w hich they operate, and the results
w hich they produce. . . . Our next step w ould carry us to the simplest
and m ost prim itive m anifestations o f life, and, continuing down to the
end o f the hall, w e w ould finally com e to m an’s place at the end o f the
sequence.
(Parr 1959: 15)
In her study o f W alter B enjam in’s P a ssa g e n -W erk , Susan Buck-Morss
quotes a passage from D o lf Sternberger’s P a n o ra m a in which a pictorial
popularization o f D arw in ’s theory o f evolution com prising a series of
sequentially ordered facial types depicting the ‘natural progression’ from ape
to man, w as said to function as a ‘panorama o f evolu tion ’, organizing the
relations betw een prehuman and human history and, within the latter, the
relations betw een different races in such a way that ‘the ey e and the mind’s
eye can slide unhindered, up and dow n, back and forth, across the pictures
as they them selves “ e v o lv e ” ’ (B uck-M orss 1990: 67). In a sim ilar way, the
natural history m useum en visaged by Parr constructed a path that the visitor
can retrace in follo w in g the stages through which the exhibits evolve from
inanimate matter to sim ple and, later, higher form s o f life.
Sim ilar principles and concerns w ere evident in the proposal Henry Pitt
Rivers put to the British A ssociation in 1888 for an anthropological rotunda
as a form particularly suited to evolutionary arrangem ents o f anthropological
exhibits. M odelled, in part, on W illiam F lo w er’s proposals for natural history
displays and advanced as an alternative to geograph ic-eth nic display P rin
c ip le s,2 the anthropological rotunda w as to g iv e a spatial realization to the
relationship betw een progress and differentiation:
The concentric circles o f a circular building adapt them selves, by their
size and position, for the exhibition o f the expanding varieties of an
evolutionary arrangement. In the innerm ost circle I w ould place the
im plem ents and other relics o f the P alaeolithic period, leaving a spot
in the actual centre for the relics o f tertiary man, w hen he is discovered-
182
MUSEUM S AND PROGRESS
sim ple form s o f the P alaeolithic period w ould require no larger
der w ould com e the N eolith ic A ge,th e increased varieties o f which
° uld fill a larger circle. In the Bronze A g e a still larger circle w ould
required. In the early Iron A ge, the increased number o f form s w ould
^quire an increased area; m ediaeval antiquities w ould follow , and so
until the outer circle o f all w ould contain specim ens o f such modern
ts as could be placed in continuity with those o f antiquity.
(Pitt R ivers 1891: 117)
pitt Rivers was attracted t° this arrangement by the prospect it offered o f
making the visitor more self-reliant by equipping him (or - but only as an
afterthought - her) with the m eans o f becom in g m ore auto-didactic. The
m e a n i n g o f every object - w hich, for Pitt .Rivers, m eant its place w ithin a
sequence - was both readily v isib le and capable o f being learned sim ply by
follow ing its tracks:
By such an arrangement, the m ost uninstructed student w ould have no
occasion to ask the history o f any object he m ight be studying: he w ould
simply have to observe its distance from the centre o f the building, and
to trace like form s continuously to their origin.
(Pitt R ivers 1891: 117)3
How important it was to these con ception s that a m useum ’s m essage should
be capable o f being realized or recapitulated in and through the physical
activity o f the visitor is evident from F.W. R udler’s proposal for m aking the
gradualism o f human evolution more perfectly perform able. The m inutes o f
the discussion fo llo w in g the presentation o f Pitt R ivers’s paper at the British
Association record R udler’s perceptions o f the perform ative lim itations o f
the anthropological rotunda and o f the m eans by w hich they m ight be
overcome:
Looking at the central circle representing the palaeolithic period, it
occurred to him that in w alking round it, being a clo sed circle, one
would never make any progress. You passed by a jum p to the next
circle, representing the n eolith ic, and though no doubt a great gap
appeared betw een the tw o periods, that only arose from our ignorance,
h seemed to him that a continuous spiral w ould, in som e degree, be a
better arrangement than a series o f circles.
(Pitt R ivers 1891: 122)
^ n c k Geddes proposed a sim ilar con cep tion as a part o f his proposals
tio S i g n i n g the urban space o f D unferm line in accordance with evolu -
ц , агУ Principles. He su ggested that the city should include a series o f
,e historical sites d epicting its history from the m edieval to the m odern
ar|d, at each stage, con n ectin g that history to broader ten dencies o f
183
 ■
T ECH NOLOGIES OF PROGRESS

evolutionary developm ent. A s the last o f these sites, a building devote^

D un ferm lin e’s nineteenth-century history w as to culm inate in a Stair o f $ • to
Evolution givin g access to a Tower o f O utlook ‘from w hich w e may look
to the old historic city and forward into its future’ (G eddes 1904: 161) ^
A couple o f contrasts w ill help make the point I’m after here. The first.
offered by the w ay in w hich the present arrangem ent o f th eM u see C arnav i*S
in Paris organizes the v isito r’s route in the form o f a ruptured narrative wh' ^
contrasts tellin gly with the sm ooth and continuous evolutionary narrativ
that Pitt R ivers judged to be essential to the m useum ’s pedagogic missio^
Portraying a history o f Paris and its p eo p le, the M usee Carnavalet consists
o f a range o f different types o f artefacts. M ost conspicuously, the c ity ’s histo
is evoked through paintings which are contem poraneous with the events they
depict. S ince they belong to the period to w hich they refer and are portrayed
as active historical forces w ithin that period, these paintings serve both as a
part o f history and as its representations.4 The paintings are accompanied by
a range o f artefacts w hose historicality exhibits sim ilar hybrid qualities. In
som e ca ses, the ob jects d isplayed have been selected because o f their
association with particular historical events: the k eys to the B astille, for
exam ple. In other cases, the function o f the objects is to display the marks of
history; they bear its im press as a script - in the form o f inspirational
revolutionary m essages on a card-table, for exam ple - through which the past
is made decipherable.
W ithin each room , then, an assem b ly o f paintings and other historical
artefacts accom pany the elaborate accounts w hich sum m arize the main events
o f the period concerned and explain their relations to one another as well as
their con n ection s to those o f earlier or later periods. In this way, the museum
functions as an ensem ble o f narrative elem ents w hich the visitor - following
the arrows w hich point out how to proceed through the room s in their proper
sequence - is able to rehearse. S ince this rehearsal takes place amidst the
artefactual trappings o f the real, it validates the fam iliar narratives o f French
nationhood. T hese typically contain a m om ent o f interruption - the revolution
- w hich is given a p erform ative d im ension. In m oving from the pre­
revolutionary period to that o f the revolution, the visitor m ust pass from one
building (the Hotel Carnavalet) to another (the Hotel Le Peletier de Saint-
Fargeau) via a gallery w hich, w hile con n ectin g these tw o tim es, serves also
to separate them and so also to introduce an elem ent o f discontinuity into the
v isitor’s itinerary.
My second exam ple is derived from Lee Rust B row n’s discussion of the
w ays in w hich, in the 1830s, the layout o f the Jardin des Plantes in Pal4*
provided a pedestrian com p lem en t to, and realization o f, the sy stem
classification governing the arrangement o f exhibits in the M useum d ’histoH-^
naturelle. W ithin the m useum itself, Brown argues, specim ens were display
in a m anner calculated to make visib le the system o f cla sses which govern
their arrangement:

1 84
 ' MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS

-Through the techniques o f its various exhibition m edia, in visib le form s

f classifications attained dem ocratic v isib ility. Wall ca ses, display
' able s - P*ant beds, groups o f zoo cages, the very books in the library -
tj,eSe d evices framed particular co llo ca tio n s o f sp ecim en s, and so
worked like transparent w in dow s through w hich the visitor could ‘s e e ’
fam ilies, orders, and classes.
(Brow n 1992: 64)

was esp ecially true o f the gallery o f com parative anatom y which, under
Cuvier’s direction, had, since its opening in 1806, exploded nature so as to
veal the inner principles o f its organization. The arrangem ent o f skeletons
• classes was accom panied by preserved sp ecim ens, their bodies splayed
open to reveal the organs and system s w hich provided the hidden basis for
their external resem blances and so also the key to their taxonom ic groupings.
Cuvier’s g a lleries’, as Dorinda Outram u sefu lly puts it ‘w ere full o f objects
to be looked not at, but in to ', their portrayal o f ‘the unspoiled beauties and
intricate organisation o f nature’ allow in g the m useum to function as an
'accessible u topia’, a visualization o f nature’s order and plenitude that could
serve as a refuge from the turm oils o f revolution (Outram 1984: 176, 184).
Similarly, the layout o f the w alkw ays in the botanical gardens were, Brown
argues, ‘technical d evices o f particular im portance’ in prescribing a route
through which visitors w ould, in passing from plant to plant in the orders o f
their resem blances to one another, both see and perform the principles o f
classification underlying pre-evolutionary natural history. Strolling through
the walkways and passing from one flow er-bed to the next, the visitor could
both move and read from ‘fam ily to fam ily, order to order, class to c la ss’ in
a form o f exercisin g that w as, con stitu tively, both m ental and p hysical.
These were m ed ia’, Brown says o f the w alk w ays, ‘for both physical and
intellectual transit: they th em selves were “ clear,” em pty o f visible form s;
by means o f them one w alked through the plant kingdom just as one w ould
think through the step s” o f a classificatory arrangement o f inform ation’
(Brown 1992: 70).
Here, then, is an exhibitionary environm ent that is sim u ltan eou sly a
Performative one; an environm ent that m akes the principles governing it clear
У and through the itinerary it organizes. It w as an environm ent, however,
* teh, while not lacking a temporal dim ension, did not organize time in the
m of irreversible su ccession . ‘The “ h isto ry ” in natural h isto ry ’, as Brown
‘described nature as it presently was - and doing so, m easured nature’s
and recovery (or, more precisely, nature’s disintegration and reintegra-
Pro • • ге^егепсе t0 (he ideal o f a total structure, an ideal that found
19 ISl0nal representation in catalogu es, cabinets, and gardens’ (Brow n
visi ; M oreover, w hile this narrative organized and framed the overall
Sy 1пё exp erience, it did not inform the v isito r ’s itinerary where the
r°nic structures o f nature’s present organization held sway.

185
 T E C H N O L O G I E S CTF P R O G R E S S
In the later decades o f the nineteenth century, by contrast, the
pathway through m ost m useum s cam e to be governed by the irrever ^ 4
su ccession o f evolutionary series. W here this was not so, m useum s were
’ to rearrange them selves so as to achieve this e ffe c t.5 If the essential meth1^
logical innovations in nineteenth-century geology, b iology and anthron i
consisted in their tem poralization o f spatial d ifferences, the m useum ’s a
plishm ent was to convert this tem poralization into a spatial arrange^ ^
. W illiam W hew ell appreciated this aspect o f the m useum ’s functioning wh11'
he remarked, apropos the Great E xhibition, that it had allow ed ‘the infan^
o f nations, their youth, their m iddle age, and their m aturity’ to be present^
sim ultaneously, adding that, thereby, ‘by annihilating the space which sepa^
ates different nations, w e produce a spectacle in which is also annihilated the
tim e which separates one stage o f a nation’s progress from another’ (W hewell
cited in Stocking 19(T7: 5 - 6 ). In fact, the m useum , rather than annihilatin
time, com presses it so as make it both v isib le and performable. The museum
as ‘backteller’, was characterized by its capacity to bring together, within the
sam e space, a number o f different tim es and to arrange them in the form of a
path w hose direction m ight be traversed in the course o f an afternoon. The
m useum visit thus functioned and w as experienced as a form o f organized
walking through evolutionary time.
P R O G R E S S A N D IT S P E R F O R M A N C E S
To sum m arize, the superim position o f the ‘b ack tellin g’ structure o f evolu­
tionary narratives on to the spatial arrangem ents o f the m useum allowed the
m useum - in its canonical late-nineteenth-century form - to m ove the visitor
forward through an artefactual environm ent in w hich the objects displayed
and the order o f their relations to one another allow ed them to serve as props
for a perform ance in which a p rogressive, c iv iliz in g relationship to the self
m ight be form ed and worked upon. H owever, the m useum was neither the
only cultural space in w hich evolutionary narratives o f progress might be
perform ed, nor w as it the only w ay in w hich such perform ances might be
conducted.
The relaxed art o f urban strolling associated w ith the figure o f the flaneur,
and the incorporation o f spaces in w hich this practice might flourish in the
m idw ay zon es o f international exh ib itions, provides a convenient point о
contrast. The new urban spaces in w hich this art had initially developed an ^
flourished - principally the arcade through its provision o f a covered walkway
rem oved from the disturbance o f traffic - were developed over roughly the
sam e period as the m useum and made use o f related architectural princip^
(see G eist 1983). The arcade, however, encouraged the distracted gaze о
detached stroller proceeding at his or her own pace w ith a freedom to cha ъ
direction at w ill. The m useum , by contrast, enjoined the visitor to con этр'У
^ u saw both v illa g es burned to ashes. W hat w as m ost co n sp icu ou sly
with a programme o f organized w alking which transformed any tendency
1 86
MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS
into a h ighly directed and sequ en tialized practice o f look in g. The
2ilZe ces betw een these tw o practices, M eg Arm strong has suggested, were
diffeГably foregrounded in the contrast betw een the o fficia l exhibition areas
n°tlCe"teenth-century A m erican exh ib itions and the m idw ays which accom -
of nl^ e them (Armstrong 1 9 9 2 -3 ). For w h ile both areas were g6 verned by
pall,e cS 0f progress, these rhetorics often differed significantly, esp ecia lly
* e*° as ^ e ir d ispositions towards the visitors were concerned,
p using particularly on the displays o f ‘prim itive p eo p les’, Arm strong
s that, w hile these were usually arranged in accordance with evolu-
afgU ry principles o f classification w ithin the official exhibition areas, the
t aimed for on the m idw ays was often much less ‘sc ien tific’. Here, rather,
e display o f ‘other p eo p les’ w as orientated to achieving the effect o f ‘a jum ble
!*|eforeignness’ in which such p eop les represented a generalized form o f
backwardness in relation to the m etropolitan powers rather than a stage in an
volutionary sequence. This w as, no doubt, m ainly attributable to the fact
that throughout the nineteenth century and, indeed, into our ow n, popular
forms of showm anship h4ve.continued to draw on the principles o f the cabinet
of curiosities either in preference to or in com bination w ith those o f the
museum. It is also true that this evocation o f an undifferentiated form o f
backwardness in the form o f an ex o ticized other was a w ay o f m aking progress
visible and performable. Compared with the linear direction o f the m useum ’s
evolutionary sequences, this w as more in tune with the arts o f urban strolling
which typically predom inated in the m idw ays. For the ‘ey e s o f the M id w ay’,
as Curtis H insley puts it, ‘are those o f the fla n e u r, the stroller through the
street arcade o f human d ifferen ces, w hose experience is not the h olistic,
integrated ideal o f the anthropologist but the segm ented, seriatim fleetingness
of the modern tourist “just passing through’” (H insley 1991: 356).
Steven M ullaney also su ggests.a useful light in w hich the colonial v illa g es
that were often constructed in association with international exh ib itions
roight be view ed. E tym ologically, M ullaney argues, the term ‘e x h ib ition ’
once referred ‘to the unveiling o f a sacrificial offering - to the exposure o f a
V1ctim, placed on public v iew for a tim e prelim inary to the final rites that
would, after a full and even indulgent display, rem ove the victim from that
new’ (Mullaney 1983: 53). A pplying this p erspective to what he variously
calls 'he ‘consum m ate perform ance’ or ‘rehearsal’ o f other cultures that was
equently associated with public dramaturgies o f pow er in the late R enais-
Sance Period, M ullaney v iew s such events as a sym bolic com plem ent to the
pr°cesses through which non-European p eop les and territories were colon -
The occasion On which he d w ells m ost is that o f Henry II’s royal entry
0 Rouen in 1550. Tw o Brazilian v illa g es, w hich had been reconstructed
•j- outskirts o f the town and partially populated with Tabbagerres and
"Pinaboux Indians, were cerem on iou sly destroyed through m ock battles
oed here, M ullaney argues, was not the financial resources required to
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 TECH NOLOGIES OF PRO&RESS

reconstruct and then spectacularly destroy the Brazilian v illa g es - alth

clearly this form ed part o f the politics o f ostentatious display through wr
royal pow er w as sym bolized - so much as ‘an alien culture its e lf’ (ibid •
The sam e w as true o f the colon ial v illag es w hich, in the later nineteenth •
early twentieth centuries, becam e a m ore or less staple feature o f internat' ^
exh ib itions. C onstructed with just as m uch loving attention to detail'0*13'
ex p en siv e care for verisim ilitu d e as had been the case at Rouen
temporary structures allow ed the„,uisitor to take part in a performance 6
this case, street theatre - in w hich detailed reconstructions and re-enactm 'П
o f other cultures served as a com plem ent to their being consum ed - and S
also used up and annihilated - within and by the culture that staged them in
the colonial v illage, the p eop les on display were sacrificial offerings to the
p rocesses o f colonization and m odernization w hich, it w as envisaged, would
eventually rem ove them entirely from view . Their exhibition was a pre
lim inary to the final rites that w ould see their erasure from the stage o f world
history.
M y concern here, however, is less w ith the variety o f w ays in which the
rhetorics or narratives o f progress provided the scripts for a range o f social
perform ances than with the attention that has to be paid to the necessarily
em bodied nature o f the v isito r’s activity on ce the perform ative aspects of
exhibitionary institutions are accorded due recognition. This concern has both
theoretical and p olitical aspects. Ian Hunter addresses the theoretical issues
in his elaboration o f the sign ifican ce o f M arcel M a u ss’s concern with
‘techniques o f the b o d y ’ and the w ays in w hich these need to be seen as
interacting w ith ‘techniques o f the s e lf ’ in w hich ‘b o d ily ’ and ‘mental'
practices interact as the re cto and verso o f specific form s o f life (see Hunter
1993). The im plication o f this argument is that there cannot be any general
form o f the m in d -b od y relation o f the kind that m odern Western philosophy
p osits and then seek s to find. Rather, persons are seen as being formed
through particular assem blages o f m ind and body techniques - particular
w ays o f w orking on and shaping bodily and m ental cap acities - which are
m ade available to them via the array o f cultural institutions, or technologies,
characterizing the so cieties in w hich they live.
V iew ed in this light, con ception s o f the m ind and body as separated entities
em erge not as a foundational reality for and o f all experience but as a
historical product o f particular w ays o f d ivid ing up the sphere o f the person
so as to render it am enable to variable practices o f self-form ation. The various
cultural tech n ologies com prising ‘the exhibitionary co m p lex ’ have, accor
ing to Tim othy M itchell, played a crucial role in the form ation and dis
sem ination o f p recisely such a conception o f the person (see M itchell 19
Drawing on Foucault’s argum ents concerning the role w hich system s or
play in the organization and dissem ination o f relations o f power, M|tc
sees in nineteenth-century exhibitionary institutions a particular ‘macm ^
o f truth’ w hose principal characteristic is the d ivision betw een the w o r l d a

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1 ^presentations w hich such institutions establish and which is, in turn, a

i|S jjjjon o f their intelligibility. This introduction o f a rift into the relations
С° П\\ een the world o f socio-m aterial relations and their conceptual plan - that
k6 their representation in the form o f a m useum or exhibition - allow ed such
lS с to function as parts o f regulative tech n ologies aim ed at refashioning
P world o f socio-m aterial relations in their ow n im age. A part o f the
rface on w hich such tech n ologies operated con sisted in the parallel
s jsj°n o f the political subject into an external body and a mental interior’
M'tchell 1988: 176). This con ception o f the person as ‘a thing o f tw o parts’
rhid ' 100) al l ° wecl developm ent o f regulative strategies aim ed at both
body and mind where regulating the environm ents in w hich bodies were
located was en visioned as a m eans o f prom oting inner-directed practices o f
self-interrogation and self-shaping.
The installation o f evolutionary narratives w ithin m useum s resulted in
precisely such a m ind -bod y technology, furnishing an environm ent in which
both body and soul m ight be constituted as the targets o f practices self-
improvement aim ed at m odernizing the individual, bringing (and I use the
term advisedly) him m ore into lin e w ith the high point o f civ iliz a tio n ’s
ad van ce. But, this dem and or p ossib ility was one that only visitors with the
right type o f bodies could respond to appropriately. C arole Pateman has
shown how the assum ption, w ithin social contract theory, that the individual
should be regarded as a disem bodied subject with equal rights served to mask
the mandatory requirem ent that on ly those with m ale bodies could be party
to those im aginary contracts w hereby the social order w as founded and
perpetuated (see Pateman 1989). An appreciation o f the n ecessarily em bodied
nature of the v isito r’s experience is important for much the sam e sorts o f
reasons. For the degree to w hich visitors cou ld com p ly w ith or respond
positively to the m useum ’s perform ative regim en depended very much on
both the colour and gender o f their bodies.

SELECTIVE AFFINITIES

About halfway through the B io lo g ica l A nthropological G allery at the M usee

1 homme in Paris, a display depicts the evolution o f the crania o f hom o
sapiens over the past 100,000 years. A s one approaches the end o f the series,
* e crania give w ay to, first, in the penultim ate spot, a photograph o f Rend
. Scartes and, at the end, in the space where the custom ary narrative o f such
P'ays lead the visitor to exp ect a cranium representing the m ost evolved
find SPe c *e s ’ a te*ev ‘s 'on monitor. A s the visitor looks closer he or she
^ s that the m onitor contains a picture o f an exhibition plinth on which his
J her own im age now rests as the crow ning glory o f the evolutionary
4 ence that has just been review ed.
. e display n icely plays with and parodies the historicized narcissism to
11 such evolutionary displays g ive rise. A t the sam e tim e it m akes an

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 T E C H N O L O G I E S OI* P R O G R E S S

important political statem ent in organizing the terminal position o f hu

evolution so that it can be occupied by everyon e, and on an equal foop'81'
irrespective o f their race, gender or nationality. In the nineteenth cen tu r
contrast, the occupancy o f such p ositions was typically reserved for prefe
social types - notably, the European m ale - w hilst other types o f Ьцщ
barred from this p osition, were assigned to an earlier stage in the evolutio ^
process. In the cranial d isplays em erging out o f the evolutionary assumnE3^
o f late-nineteenth-century craniology, w om en were assigned a place a fe S
steps behind m en, and colon ized black p eop les a place several leagues beh'
white Europeans, interm ediate stages w ithin evolutionary narratives which
they were not yet - and, in som e form ulations, perhaps never w ould - be able
to com plete.
G illian B eer has suggested that the significance o f D arw in’s work in the
history o f scientific thought w as that o f dethroning m an-centred narratives of
history. Darwin had show n, she argues, ‘that it was possib le to have plot
without man - both plot previous to man and plot even now regardless of
h im ’ (B eer 1983: 21). G eorges C anguilhem m akes a sim ilar point when he
says that Darwin ob liged man ‘to take his place as a subject in a kingdom
the anim al kingdom , o f w hich he had previously p osed as monarch by divine
right’ (C anguilhem , 1988: 104). Y et if this w as so, B eer argues, the
subjectless plot o f natural selection prompted a com pensatory narrative of
‘grow th, ascent, and developm ent towards com plexity. . . a new form o f quest
myth, prom ising continuing exploration and creating the future as a prize’.
In place o f m an’s fall from an originary state o f perfection in the Garden of
Eden, human perfection w as relocated into the future as som ething to be
striven for and achieved in ascending stages w here, as Beer puts it, ascent
‘was also flight - a flight from the prim itive and the barbaric which could
never quite be left b eh ind ’ (B eer 1983: 1 2 7 -8 ).
E volutionary theory prom pted a veritable sw arm ing o f narratives, and riot
all o f them new ones. W hatever their fate w ithin the scientific community,
the teleo lo g ica l and intentional narratives deriving from Lamarckian evolu­
tionary con ception s retained their influence throughout the century. Similarly,
esp ecially in Britain, an effec tiv e currency allow in g for an exchange between
evolutionary thought and C hristianity w as established in w hich ‘savages
were to be both saved and civ ilized . Many narratives w hich could n ot be
reconciled with D arw inism continued to be effec tiv e ly deployed in a wide
range o f social id eo lo g ies. P olygen etic con ception s, in w hich black and white
p eop les are held to have developed from separate origins and are destined to
continue along separate evolutionary paths, rem ained influential. This * aS
esp ecially true o f the U nited States w here, in the south, the m essage that
N eg ro ’ cou ld never exp ect to jump the gap betw een the black and white pa
o f evolution proved a palatable solace in the face o f black e m a n c ip atl° ^
Robert R ydell (1984) has traced the influence o f such conceptions on ^
exh ib itions held in the southern states o f A m erica in the late ninetee

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 MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS
■

tury wh**e ’ *n l^e museurn w orld. they governed the initial arrangement
co ilection s at the M useum o f Com parative A natom y which Louis
iz - d16 m ost significant intellectual advocate o f p o lygen etic con-
_ established at Harvard (see G ould 1981; Lurie 1960).
s h o r t , D arw inian thought articulated with contem porary social and
lYcal p hilosophies in com p lex and varied w ays. It w as not, and in the
P° (eenth century never becam e, the only source o f evolutionary narratives.
111116e w e r e other narratives, som e o f w hich insisted that the story o f human
o lu tio n could only be satisfactorily narrated if it were divided into (at least)
6 s t o r ie s . The point is worth making if only because the degree o f su ccess
with w h ic h D arw inism was articulated to con servative variants o f social
e v o lu tio n is t and p roto-eugenicist thought in the late nineteenth century can
often e c l i p s e the respects in w hich it could be and, initially was, connected
to p r o g r e s s iv e currents o f social reform . M any o f those who were m ost
in flu en tial in translating D arw inian thought into an applied social philosophy
__ gnxley and Spencer, for exam ple — w ere from a m idd le-class, dissenting
b a ck g ro u n d . In organizational terms, D arw in ’s work played a crucial role in
the affairs o f the E th nological S ociety. B y the 1860s, this S o ciety had
recruited the support o f m ost liberal and reform ing in tellectuals and d e­
velo p ed its programme in sp ecific critique o f the rabidly racist and virulently
sexist conceptions w hich, under the leadership o f Jam es Hunt, characterized
the riv a l A nthropological S o ciety .6
Georges C anguilhem g iv e s an inkling as to w hy this should have been so
when he remarks that, b efore D arw in, ‘livin g things w ere thought to be
confined to their preordained ec o lo g ica l niche on pain o f d eath’ (Canguilhem
1988: 104). Clearly, C anguilhem has C uvier’s doctrine o f the fixity o f sp ecies
and the im possibility o f transform ism - that is, o f one form o f life gradually
evolving into another - in m ind here. The im plications o f such conceptions
when carried into Jhe social realm , however, were eq u ally clear. Cuvier,
arguing that there were ‘certain intrinsic cau ses w hich seem to arrest the
progress o f certain races, even in the m ost favourable circu m stan ces’
(cited in Stocking 1968: 35), view ed black races as never having progressed
^yond barbarism and - m ore important to m y present concerns - as never
likely to d o so. If, in C uvier’s system , all living things were confined to their
ecological niche, then so also, when it cam e to d ivision s w ithin human life,
e place that different p eop les occupied w ithin racial hierarchies seem ed
Preordained and unchangeable. It is not surprising, therefore, that C uvier’s
w° rk remained important in providing a scientific basis for p o ly g en etic
^ °nceptions. Such con cep tion s, when translated into so cia l program m es,
e<J exp licitly anti-reform ist. A s Stephen Jay G ould notes o f Louis
Ssiz, who had been a student and d iscip le o f C uvier’s, his p olygen etic
^ e p tio n s , when translated into social policy, aim ed to train different races
i>0 i
Ы 31 theY m ight stay in the separate nich es they already occupied: ‘train
c s in hand work, w hites in mind w ork’ (Gould 1981: 47).

191
 TECHNOLOGIES 6 f PROGRESS 1
For the liberal and reform ing currents in nineteenth-century thought th
the attraction o f D arw in’s thought w as that, in loosen in g up the ,et1,
sp ecies by allow ing that one form o f life m ight ev o lv e into a higher one °f
m ade the boundaries betw een them m ore perm eable. D arw inism , in ’ 11
appropriation, provided a way o f thinking o f nature w hich, when аррЦе^Пе
the social body, allow ed the structure o f social relations to be mapped in w t0
con d ucive to reform ing program m es intended to im prove and civ ilize do
lation s, to lift them through the ranks. At the sam e tim e, however •
supplying the process o f evolution with a conservative m echanism (natural
selection ) D arw in’s thought allow ed evolutionary theory to be detached fr0ni
the radical associations it had enjoyed in the 1830s and 1840s when the
influence o f Lam arck’s and G e o ffro y ’s evolutionary conceptions - which
provided for no such restraining m echanism - had been paramount (see
D esm ond 1989). This difference w as crucial in allow in g evolutionary thought
to be disconnected from radical program m es aim ed at dism antling existino
social hierarchies and to be adapted to gradualist schem as o f social reform
Zygm unt Bauman helps clarify the con n ection s I have in mind here. In his
In tim a tio n s o f P o stm o d e rn ity (1 9 9 2 ), Baum an d iscu sses the respects in which
evolutionary thought allow ed a revival o f E nlightenm ent conceptions of
human perfectibility. P recisely because o f their secular nature - because they
reflected an order that was to be m ade rather than one d ivin ely pre-given -
such con ception s allow ed social life to be thought o f as an object of
techniques oriented to the p rogressive p erfectibility o f form s o f thought,
conduct and social interrelation. V iew ed in this light, Bauman argues, there
is an important connection betw een the reform ist project o f culture, in its
nineteenth-century sense, and evolutionary narratives o f progress. Earlier
hierarchical rankings o f form s o f human life had not given rise to the
p ossib ility that populations m ight be inducted into form s o f self-improvement
that w ould help them to m ove up and through such hierarchies. The only
p ossib ility was that individuals m ight achieve the standards appropriate to
their given place in such hierarchies. B y contrast, the revised form s o f ranking
human life m ade p ossib le by evolutionary theory gave rise to the possibility
that, in principle, all populations m ight be inscribed within a p ro g ra m m e of
p rogressive self-im provem ent. S to ck in g ’s com m ents point in a similar dir­
ection when he identifies the sim ilarities betw een Edward T ylor’s view of
culture and A rn old ’s conception o f culture as a norm o f perfection which,
dissem inated through the population, m ight help inculcate practices of se ^
im provem ent. For Tylor, the point o f arranging human and cultural evolu
tionary series in parallel with, or em erging out o f, natural ones was not
keep populations w ithin the places they occupied w ithin such series but.
where p ossib le, to m ove them through them so that they m ight draw mor
c lo se ly towards an ever-m oving and ev olvin g norm o f human developm >
‘The scien ce o f cu lture’, as Tylor put it, ‘is essen tia lly a reform er’s science^
(cited in Stocking 1968: 82). The tenets o f evolutionary theory, in 1 e

19 2
I Pa
MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS

winian form ulation, cou ld lend th em selves to liberal and reform ist
ts 0f social thought and p olicy in providing a grid through w hich the
cUr s0cial relations could be so laid out so that cultural strategies m ight
d e v e lo p e d a*mec* at equipping the w hole population with m eans o f
If improvement t r o u g h which they m ight ascend through the ranks, thus
S£ ving the w hole o f society forwards and upwards - but only slo w ly and
^ dually* step by step. Any other w ay o f proceeding - and this w as the
^ fc a te political balancing act that D arwin allow ed reform ing opinion to
erforrn - hy attempting to push progress forward in a radical or revolutionary
r u s h w o u l d be to fly in the face o f nature.
A lth o u g h not the only social philosophy to articulate evolutionary thought
to its purposes, this reform ist articulation o f evolutionary theory influenced
the ways in w hich late-nineteenth-century public m useum s were v iew ed as
p o ten tia l instruments for cultural reform . It also shaped the operation o f the
‘b a c k t e llin g ’ structure o f the m useum ’s narrative m achinery such that its
address privileged m en over w om en and w hite Europeans over black and
c o lo n iz e d peop les. The d evices w hich rendered human progress into a
p e r fo r m a b le narrative within the m useum entailed that only som e hum ans and
not o th e r s could recogn ize them selves as fully addressed by that narrative
and thus b e able to carry out its perform ative routines.
The developm ents w ithin the human scien ces w hich made it p ossib le for
colonized peoples to be assigned to earlier stages o f evolution, and thus to
serve as the m eans w hereby the past from which civ iliz ed man had em erged
might be rendered visib le, are many and com p lex. The crucial on es concern,
first, the establishm ent o f a historical tim e o f human antiquity w hich, in
shattering the constraints o f biblical tim e, show ed, as D onald G rayson puts
it, that human beings ‘had coexisted w ith extinct m am m als at a tim e that was
ancient in terms o f absolute years, and at a tim e w hen the earth w as not yet
modern in form ’ (Grayson 1983: 190). The production o f such a tim e took
place over an extended period, initially prompted by developm ents within
geology but eventually being m ost su ccessfu lly organized by the d iscipline
(prehistoric archaeology) that w ould claim that tim e as its ow n. Its definitive
establishment, however, took place in 1859 - the sam e year in w hich T he
Origin o f th e S p e c ie s w as published - w hen L y ell con ceded that the
excavations at Brixham C ave had dem onstrated an extended antiquity for
mankind.
This production o f an extended past for human life w as, in its turn, to play
crucial role in allow in g eth nological artefacts to be categorized as ‘early’
^ Primitive’ as distinct from ‘e x o tic ’ or ‘distant’. A gain, the developm ents
re were protracted. W ithin m edieval thought, according to Friedman,
^nceptions o f non-European peoples were governed by the classical terato-
§У of P liny jn w hich such peoples were regarded as exhibiting form s o f
(th nSSS аПС* ^ c iv ility w hich reflected their distance from the w orld ’s centre
e M editerranean), i f this system o f representation was governed by a

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 T E C H N O L O G IE S OF PR O G R E SS

spatial lo g ic, its historical aspects were directly contrary to those

subsequently characterized evolutionary thought. In accordance wi ■
with the
requirem ents o f m edieval Christian thought, m edieval n arratives
m onstrous races were governed by the notion o f degeneration: those neof the i*"
w ho lived in conditions o f m onstrousness or w ild ness at the w o r .ld..’s ed
0Ple;
o'-S
were the degenerate offspring o f the wandering tribes o f Cain, a fall from h
originary perfection o f Adam and Eve. A s Friedman sum m arizes the point.6

A s for alien form s o f social organisation, W estern feudal society could

not view these as representing earlier stages o f developm ent; in
Christian history all men had their start at the sam e time, from the sam e
parents. Cultural evolution from prim itive to com p lex was simply not
part o f the conceptual vocabulary o f the period. To the m edieval m ind
it w as more natural to exp lain social d ifferen ces as the result of
degeneration or decadence.
(Friedman 1981: 90)

The conversion o f this spatialized teratology into a historicized system of

classification in w hich ‘other p e o p le s’ were m oved from the w orld’s extrem­
ities to the initial stages o f human history w as clo sely associated with the
history o f colon ialism . A ccording to Margaret H odgen, M ontaigne was the
first, in his reflections on the A m ericas, to propose the procedure, which
Fabian (1983) v ie w s as constitutive o f m odern anthropology, whereby the
culture o f a presently ex istin g p eop le is interpreted as ‘a present and
accessib le reflection o f the past o f som e very early and otherw ise undocu­
m ented cultural con d ition ’ (H odgen 1964: 2 9 7 ). However, thinkers associ­
ated w ith the French E nlightenm ent were to prove m ost influential in
providing a conceptual basis for what was later known as the ‘comparative
m ethod'. Stocking attributes considerable im portance to Baron Turgot’s
view , d eveloped in a program m e o f lectures at the Sorbonne during the winter
o f 1 7 5 0 -1 , that ‘the present state o f the world . . . spreads out at one and the
sam e tim e all the gradations from barbarism to refinement, thereby revealing
to us at a single glance . . . all the steps taken by the human m ind, a reflection
o f all the stages through w hich it has p assed ’ (Turgot, cited in Stocking 1987:
14). Stocking and Fabian are also agreed in attributing a crucial significance
to the text prepared by C itizen D egerando in 1800 for the Societe des
O bservateurs - the m ost significant institutional base for early F r e n c h
anthropology - to advise on the m ethods travellers should fo llo w in thfiF
observations o f ‘savage p e o p le s’. B y this tim e the reciprocal spatialization
o f tim e and tem poralization o f space that the com parative m ethod relies on
had b ecom e exp licit. ‘The vo y a g eu r-p h ilo so p h e w ho sails toward the e x tr e r n
ities o f the earth,’ D egerando wrote, ‘traverses in effect the sequence of the
ages; he travels in the past; each step he takes is a century over w hich e
le a p s’ (D egerando, cited in Stocking 1968: 2 6 -7 ).
Significant though they w ere, these developm ents did not, o f th e m se lveS’

194
 MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS

eSt the m eans w hereby eth nological artefacts m ight be rearranged as

.UgS' o f d evelopm ental sequ en ces. The crucial d evelopm en ts here were
Paftje(j in the interface betw een archaeology and evolutionary thought. The
tension o f tim e associated with the d iscovery o f human antiquity sketched
eX ve proved significant in allow in g stone tools and im plem ents - w hich had
3 distinguished from m inerals and fo ssils sin ce the sixteenth century but
beSe still regarded as being o f relatively recent production - to serve as a
ns o f rendering human antiquity v isib le. One o f the first m u seological
ductions o f such an extended human tim e, arranging artefacts in a
^ornplex developm ental sequ en ce, con sisted in the use o f the three-age
° stem o f classification (stone, iron, bronze) in a m id-century display at the
Rational M useum o f C openhagen. From this, it w as a sm all but d ecisiv e step
to place the artefacts o f still-ex istin g p eop les w ithin such series and, usually,
as their origins - the ground from w hich progress sets o ff. H ow ever, it is no
accident that one o f the first to take this step w as Henry Pitt R ivers who,
a lth o u g h now m ost fam ous for his eth n ological co llectio n s, w as, by training,
an archaeologist.
I shall look more c lo se ly at Pitt R iv ers’s translation o f these archaeological
principles into m useum displays in the next section, principally to m ake clear
how he view ed the m useum as a m achinery that m ight sim ultaneously
stimulate and regulate progress. M y concern thus far, however, has been to
identify the respects in w hich m useum s m ight be view ed as having aim ed to
keep progress on the go by offerin g their visitors a perform ative regim e
organized in the form o f a progressive itinerary. But, by the sam e token, the
museum’s selective affinities m eant that it m ight address itse lf in this way
to, at best, only a h alf o f a h alf o f the w orld ’s population, a lim itation that
was inscribed in the very heart o f its conception as a ‘p ro g ressiv e’ cultural
technology.

EVOLUTIONARY AUTOMATA

The museum has had few more e ffe c tiv e or se lf-c o n sc io u s advocates o f
Zadig’s m ethod’ than Henry Pitt R ivers w hose typological arrangem ents o f
ethnological collection s were more or less self-co n scio u s realizations o f the
Principles o f ‘b ack tellin g’. N or is this w holly surprising. H u xley and Pitt
Rivers were personally acquainted; both were m em bers o f the E thnological
Society; and it is lik ely that H u x le y ’s arrangem ents at the M useum o f
ractical G eology, where a concern to educate the public was prominent,
'nhuenced Pitt R ivers’s ow n con ception s o f the purposes for w hich m useum
sPlays should be arranged and the m eans by w hich such ends m ight best be
^ n t p u ^ (see chapm an 1985: 29).
Most telling o f all, however, w as the dependency o f typ ological arrange-
Ms on the concept o f survivals. A s Margaret H odgen argued alm ost sixty
rs ago, this w as crucial to those tem poral m anoeuvres through w hich, by

195
 TECH NOLOGIES OF*PROGRESS
con verting presently ex istin g cultures into the prehistories o f E uron
civ iliz a tio n , anthropology has created its object. The doctrine o f su r v iv i **
as Edward Tyler sum m arized it in his P rim itiv e C u ltu re (1 8 7 1 ), referred S’
those archaic 'p rocesses, custom s, op in ion s, and so forth, w hich have b e^
carried by force o f habit into a new so ciety . . . and . . . thus rem ain ^
proofs and exam p les o f an older con d ition o f culture out o f w hich aa HcWno aS
gp
has e v o lv e d ’ (cited in H odgen 1936: 3 7). The relationship between thi
m anoeuvre and the organizing principles o f ty p o lo g ica l d isplays, in w hi^
artefacts such as tools and w eapons or dom estic u tensils were severed fr0m
any con n ection with their originating cultural or regional m ilieu to be placed
in a universal d evelopm en tal sequ en ce leading from the sim ple to the
com p lex, w as m ade clear by Pitt R ivers in his exp lication o f what he had
sought to achieve in the eth n ological exh ib ition he arranged at th e Bethnal
Green M useum in 1874. ‘F o llo w in g the orthodox scien tific principle of
reasoning from the know n to the unknow n,’ he argued, ‘I have commenced
my descrip tive catalogu e with the sp ecim en s o f the arts o f existin g savages
and have em p loyed them , as far as p o ssib le, to illustrate the relics of
prim eval man, none o f w hich , ex cep t those constructed o f the more
im perishable m aterials, such as flint and stone, have survived to our time’
(L ane-Fox 1875: 295).
This is ‘b ack tellin g’ with a ven gean ce. The artefacts o f presently existing
p eop les can be read back into the past where they can serve to back-fill the
present by being appointed to different stages in an evolutionary sequence
because they are construed as traces o f earlier stages o f human development.
The survival, however, is a peculiar kind o f trace. On the supposition that the
so cieties in w hich it is found have stood still, the survival is both the trace
o f earlier events and their repetition. Survivals are footprints in the sands of
tim e w hose imprint is unusually strong and clear to the degree that later
generations are supposed to have gon e round in circles, treading in the steps
o f their forebears. ‘Each lin k ’, as Pitt R ivers puts it a little later in his
d iscu ssion , ‘has left its representatives, w hich, with certain modifications,
have survived to the present time; and it is by m eans o f these su rviva ls, and
not by the links th em selves, that w e are able to trace out the sequence that
has been spoken o f ’ (Lane-Fox 1875: 302).
Although Pitt R ivers was clearly responsible for cod ifyin g the s o - c a l l e d
‘typ ological m ethod’, its principles were not unheralded. W illiam C h ap m an ,
Pitt R iv er s’s biographer, points to the influence o f a number o f earher
collectio n s in w hich sim ilar elem ents were in evidence, and it is clear from
other contem poraneous proposals that such ideas w ere very much ‘in the air
at the tim e. The principles A lfred W allace enunciated for the Ethnolog'ca
G allery o f his ideal educational m useum in 1869 were thus virtually identic
to those w hich Pitt R ivers w as subsequently to put into effect in l^e
arrangement o f his collections:
1 96
MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS
| The ch ief w ell-m arked races o f man should be illustrated either by life-
jZe m odels, casts, coloured figures, or by photographs. A corres-
n d in g series o f their crania should also be shown; and such portions
of the skeleton as should exhibit the d ifferen ces that exist betw een
certain races, as w ell as those betw een the low er races and those anim als
hich m ost nearly approach them. Casts o f the best authenticated
rem ain s o f prehistoric man should also be obtained, and compared with
the corresponding parts o f existing races. The arts o f mankind should
be illustrated by a series, com m encing with the rudest flint im plem ents,
and passing through those o f polished stone, bronze, and iron - show ing
in every case, along with the works o f prehistoric man, those corres­
p o n d in g to them form ed by existing savage races.
(W allace 1869: 248)
Pitt R ivers’s originality, then, lay elsew here: in his conception o f ethno-
loeical exhibitions as d evices for teaching the need for progress to advance
slowly - step by step - in a manner that was intended to serve the purposes
of an automated pedagogy.
While his political v ie w s com prised a com p lex am algam o f different
currents o f late-nineteenth-century thought, they can perhaps best be summar­
ized as a form o f p o litica l conservatism w hich sought to em brace the
progressive im plications o f evolutionary thought w h ile insisting that the rate
of progress was more or less naturally ordained. C hange for Pitt R ivers was,
as David Van Keuren puts it, ‘som ething to be directed and lim ited, not
striven against’ (van Keuren 1989: 2 8 5 ). The progressive developm ent o f
social life was to be w elcom ed but not hastened. It w ould com e, but - and
his target here w as clearly so cia list thought - in its ow n tim e through
mechanisms which w ould depend on the accum ulation o f a m ultitude o f tiny
measures w hich w ould gradually b ecom e habitual rather than on any sudden
orruptural political action. History, in other words, cou ld not be m ade to go
at a jump: this was the central m essage Pitt R ivers sought to com m unicate
through his eth n ological arrangem ents. Progress w as made v isib le and
Performable in the form o f a su ccessio n o f sm all steps linked to one another
m an irreversible and unbridgeable sequence. One had to go through one stage
t0 get to the next. In ex to llin g the virtues o f his proposal for an anthropo-
l°gical rotunda as being esp ecia lly suited to the educational needs o f the
w°rking classes, Pitt R ivers argued:
Anything which tends to im press the mind with the slow growth and
stability o f human institutions and industries, and their dependence
Upon antiquity, m ust, I think, contribute to check revolutionary ideas,
and the tendency w hich now ex ists, and w hich is encouraged by som e
Who should know better, to break directly with the past, and m ust help
to inculcate conservative principles, which are needed at the present
197
 TECHNOLOGIES O f PROGRESS

tim e, if the civilisation that w e enjoy is to be m aintained and to be

perm itted to d evelop itself.
(Cited in Chapman 1981: 5 15 ^

This helps explain why the doctrine o f survivals played such an imp0rta
political role in Pitt R ivers’s m u seological practice. For it allow ed thp nt
to be visu alized from the tracks that had alleg ed ly been left behind by 0
ancestors in the early stages o f human evolution. This was com m on to°T
eth n ological displays. More d istin ctively, then, the doctrine o f survival
provided Pitt R ivers with the m eans through w hich the past, in back-fiiu ^
the present, could also be literally filled up so that, w hile the gap between
the first object in a series (an anthropological throwing stick) and the last (a
m edieval m usket) m ight be large, the space betw een them w ould be densel
thicketed with ob jects repesenting intervening stages in the evolution of
weaponry which could be neither by-passed nor jum ped over. A s Pitt Rivers
explained in a letter to Tyler:

If I were going to lecture about m y co llectio n s, I should draw attention

to the value o f the arrangem ent, not so much on account o f the interest
w hich attaches to the developm ent o f the tools, w eapons in them selves,
but because, they best seem to illustrate the developm ent that has taken
place in the branches o f human culture w hich cannot be so arranged in
sequence because the links are lost and the su ccessiv e ideas through
w hich progress has been effected have never been em bodied in material
form s, on w hich account the Institutions o f M ankind often appear to
have developed by greater jum ps than has really been the case. But in
the material arts, the links are preserved and by due search and
arrangem ent can be placed in their proper sequence.
(Cited in Chapman 1981: 480)

The m useological context o f the 1870s and 1880s in w hich P itt Rivers
arranged for his eth n ological collectio n s to be exhibited to the public - first,
in 1874, in a special exhibition at Bethnal Green and, subsequently, at the
South K ensington M useum - was governed by a revival o f ‘the museum idea
in w hich a renew ed stress was placed on the im portance o f museums as
instruments o f public instruction. Tw o things had changed since this idea had
been first prom ulgated by Henry C ole in the 18 40s and 1850s. First, museums
were en visaged less as a moral antidote to the tavern than as a politic®*,
antidote to socialism (see C oom bes 1988). S econ d , there w as a grow ing
tendency within m useum s to dispense with those form s o f instruction that were
dependent on visitors being accom panied by gu ides towards a c o n c e p tio n
the m useum as an environm ent in w hich the visitor w ould becom e, in a more
or less automated fashion, self-teach in g. Over the period from the 1840s
the 1860s, the w eaponry exhibits in the armoury at the Tower o f London wefe
rearranged in a chronological fashion to dispense with the need for attendants

198
 MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS

ard Forbes made sim ilar adjustm ents to the M useum o f Practical G eology
that it might function as an autom ated space o f self-instruction.
S°piU Riyers h im self displayed a sim ilar com m itm ent during his early
as a collector when his interests centred on w eaponry and firearms, a
f le c t i o n which he developed, initially, as a resource for his work as a rifle
c° tructor in the army. In a lecture he delivered in 1858 on the history o f the
*Па Pitt R ivers su ggested that any instructor w ould find it useful to
П niplemem his practical lesson s with lectures, preferably accom panied by
C°hibits, in the history o f sm all arms using form s o f instruction that were
designed to be ‘proportional to the rank and intelligen ce o f his auditors’ (cited
• Chapman 1981: 26). Chapman, in glo ssin g Pitt R iv ers’s concerns in this
rea argues that his co llec tio n s and instruction m anuals were m eant to
produce an interface betw een tw o kinds o f progress:

At one level there w as the self-evid en t advance represented by the rifle,

each im provem ent o f w hich in turn represented the su ccessiv e triumphs
of individual thinkers and inventors. At a second level there w as the
individual triumph o f each sold ier placed in h is charge, the slow
development o f ideas w hich his manual was m eant to prom ote.
(Chapman 1981: 26)

The purpose o f exhibiting progress w as to provide a prop through w hich the

infantryman m ight be helped to progress through a set o f ranked sk ills in a
regulated and gradual manner.
When Pitt R ivers exhibited his eth nological collectio n s at Bethnal Green
Museum, his conception o f the purpose o f exh ib itions and o f the m eans by
which such a purpose m ight be accom plished - and esp ecia lly the com m it­
ment to the use o f m eans o f instruction ‘proportional to the rank and
intelligence o f his auditors’ - w as not substantially changed, m erely adapted
to new circum stances. W hile this exh ib ition did not deploy the principles o f
the ‘anthropological rotunda’ w hich Pitt R ivers later advocated, it was
directed towards the sam e end - to m ake the step-by-step, slow , sequential
toil of progress visib le and perform able. The exh ib its were arranged into a
number o f different series each o f w hich , by m eans o f the ‘ty p o lo g ica l
method’, depicted a particular developm ental sequence. A series o f skeletons
and crania depicted the evolution from primate to human life and, then, from
Primitive to civ iliz ed races, w h ile a series o f w eaponry exem p lified the
national evolution o f human techn ology with ‘painted arrows providing the
Proper sequence for the v isito rs’ (Chapman 1981: 374).
What was d istinctive, however, w as the conception o f the audience this
'ration was meant to reach and o f the m eans by w hich it was to achieve
mtended effect w ith th a t a u d ie n ce . The Bethnal Green M useum w as the
site ^ en s'n8ton M u seum ’s outppst in East London. It was selected as the
ed ^°r ^'lt R 'v er s's exh ib ition sp ecifically as a public test-case o f the
cative potential’ o f evolutionary anthropology in an area that w as both
 TECH NOLOGIES OF PROGRESS

radically pauperized and a centre for w orking-class radicalism . A s C hapu,

tellin gly notes, it w as the first such test for anthropology in London. T h e о **
previous exh ib itions o f eth nological co llectio n s in East London had be ^
organized by the London M issionary Society and these, reflecting earli^
exh ib ition practices, had been arranged to tell a different story o f sa v a g e Г
a narrative o f degeneration and d eclin e, o f a fall from grace, rather than
o f failed advancem ent.7 How, then, did Pitt R ivers think that anthropolog0^6
ch ie f political m essage - ‘the law that Nature m akes no jum ps’ (Pitt R jv S
1891: 116) - m ight be m ost e ffe c tiv e ly com m unicated to w o r k in g -c lass
visitors? In brief: by em p loyin g m ethods adjusted to their level o f mental
developm ent.
The assum ptions o f evolutionary theory inform ed not just the contents and
arrangem ent o f the exhibition: they w ere central to its p ed agogics. When jn
1874, Pitt R ivers addressed the A nthropological Institute on the subject of
the Bethnal Green exh ib ition, he took advantage o f the opportunity to outline
a d istinction betw een what he ca lled the ‘in tellectual m ind, capable of
reasoning on unfam iliar occurrences’, and ‘an autom aton mind capable of
acting in tu itively in certain m atters w ithout effort o f the w ill or con­
sc io u sn e ss’ (Lane-Fox 1875: 296). H aving elaborated this distinction, Pitt
R ivers posited the ex isten ce o f a historical d ia lectic betw een these two
different kinds o f mind. Pitt R ivers’s v iew s regarding the manner in which
this historical d ialectic unfolds is crucial to his understanding o f the
m echanism s o f progress and the traces that these have deposited in the
distribution o f m ental attributes betw een different p eop les and cultures. For
the autom aton m ind, he argued, is com prised o f actions w hich, w hile they
may have in itially required the use o f the in tellectual m ind, have since
b ecom e habituated through repetition so that no co n scio u s attention is
required for their perform ance. A s such, these capacities o f the automaton
mind b ecom e quasi-physical. They are corporeally ingested so as to become
a transm issible m ental stock that is passed on - not via social trainings, but
by an unspecified hereditary m echanism - from one generation to the next.
The ratio o f the autom aton m ind to the intellectual m ind can then serve, Pitt
R ivers argues, as an index o f a popu lation ’s placem ent on the ladder ot
progress. The autom aton mind w ill account for a higher proportion of the
total m ind the low er the stage o f developm ent o f a population. Pitt Rivers s
reasoning here su ggests that such a m ental inheritance d erives from the
situation o f backward p eop les w ho, sin ce their so cieties have remained static,
have been able to cope with their circum stances through the sim ple reflect
application o f the autom aton mind for longer periods than more develope
p eop les w ho (to have b ecom e m ore d eveloped) m ust have had to give more
tim e to exercisin g the intellectual mind.
The scope o f Pitt R iv ers’s argum ents on this matter was clearly a bro
one. But they also inform ed his approach to questions o f museum pedagoglC^
If, he argued, in a later address, 'the law that Nature m akes no jum ps, can

200
 M USEUM S AND PROGRESS

ht by the history o f m echanical contrivances, in such a way as at least

t3llfe- ke men cautious how they listen to scatterbrained revolutionary su gges-
t0 > this can only be so if such collectio n s are ‘arranged in such a manner
t'°n those who run may read’. By ‘those who run’, Pitt Rivers m eant the
H oiking classes:

The working classes have but little tim e for study; their leisure hours
are and alw ays must be, com paratively brief. Tim e and clearness are
lements o f the very first im portance in the matter under consideration.
The more intelligent portion o f the w orking cla sses, though they have
but little book learning, are extrem ely quick in appreciating all m echan­
ical matters, more so even than highly educated m en, because they are
trained up to them; and this is another reason w hy the im portance o f
the object lesson s that m useum s are capable o f teaching should be w ell
considered.
• (Pitt Rivers 1891: 1 16)

If the museum is to teach the working man that progress w ill com e, but only
slowly, if he is to advance, but only at a regulated rate, then the m useum must
address him in form s w hich he has been ‘trained up to ’. Since these lesson s
must be absorbed in the brief snatches w hich interrupt a life o f necessary
labour, they m ust require only the application o f the autom aton mind.
That the sam e m ethods may not work w ell with educated men is made
explicit. But what o f w om en? Pitt R ivers does not address the question
directly. However, when d iscu ssin g the m useum he established in Farnham
in the 1880s, he does m ake specific reference to w om en visitors. D escribing
a display o f crates w hich w om en were exp ected to carry in ‘p rim itive’ tribal
cultures, he states that he had collected them ‘exp ressly to show the w om en
of my district how little they resem ble the beasts o f burden they m ight have
been had they been bred elsew h ere’ (Pitt Rivers 1891: 119). The working
man, even though being urged to slow dow n, w as addressed as a potential
agent of progress w hile w om en were en visaged as only the p assive b en e­
ficiaries o f an evolutionary process w hose driving forces were the m an-made
technologies o f war and production. Read in the con text o f the conjunction
between evolutionary theory and the prevailing con cep tion s o f sex dif-
terentiation, such a display can only have been calculated to reconcile w om en
t0 their ordained position as alw ays at least one step behind men in the process
ot S o lu tion ’s advancem ent.

O N E SE X AT A T IM E

Pol^e ^ us^e 1’hom m e the visitor’s route through the B iological Anthro-
su f ^1Ca^ Са11егУ *s organized in the form o f a journey from the b o d y ’s
*ayedCeS t*lrouSh t0 *ts underlying structures. In the process, as layer after
ls stripped away, so the physical substratum o f our com m on humanity
 T E C H N O L O G I E S CfF P R O G R E S S

is progressively laid bare. W hile it is show n that there are m any respects
w hich individuals m ay differ from one another so far as their bod';
appearances are concerned - d ifferen ces o f hair-type, height, pigm entaf'^
and genitalia - such d ifferen ces disappear once the anatom ical gaze, ceas|°n
to be m erely skin-deep, slices into the b o d y ’s interior. Here, in the bod
m usculature, in its organs, bones and, finally, the cod es o f D N A , the w V
revealed to view is one in which the visitor finds everyw here an identity 0
form and function, the essential sam eness o f the bodies o f mem bers of th
sp ecies hom o sa p ie n s. The only interior differen ces that are allow ed я
sign ifican ce are those affecting the form and function o f the reproductive
organs o f men and w om en. Even here, the accom panying text m akes it clear
that these differen ces relating to the sex o f bodies do not have any general
con sequ en ces. In all respects excep t for their organs o f generation, the bodies
o f m en and w om en are portrayed as fundam entally the sam e with regard to
their underlying structures. The point is underlined in a display o f two human
sk eleton s - one fem ale, the other m ale - as structurally identical in all
significant respects in spite o f their ob vious differen ces in height and girth.
N o less than their forebears in earlier anatom ical displays, these are
m oralized skeletons. Carrying a m essage o f human sam eness, they function
as part o f a con sciou s didactic intended to detach the m useum ’s displays of
eth n ological artefacts and rem ains from the assum ptions o f nineteenth-
century evolutionary thought. This intention is foregrounded by the inclusion
w ithin the Gallery o f a historical d isplay outlining the racist principles which
governed nineteenth-century exh ib itions o f the relations betw een European
and ‘sa v a g e’ p eop les. The point o f this historical exhibit is m ost graphically
m ade by a brief item relating to Saartje Baartman, the so-called ‘Hottentot
V en us’, w ho, the visitor is advised, w as frequently shown in early-nineteenth-
century London as an exam ple o f arrested prim itivism . Yet curiously, and in
what m ust count as an act o f institutional d isavow al, no reference is made to
the fact that Saartje w as frequently show n in Paris. More to the point, after
her death her genitalia, w hose peculiarities, carefully dissected and inter­
preted by C uvier as a sign o f backwardness, were displayed at the Musee de
l ’hom m e itself. Stephen Jay G ould has recalled how, when he was being
show n round the storage areas o f the m useum som e tim e in the 1970s, he was
startled to stum ble across Saartje’s preserved genitalia side by side with the
d issected genitalia o f tw o other Third World w om en. T hese were stored, he
notes, just above the brain o f Paul Broca, the m ost influential exponent of^
nineteenth-century craniology w ho had bequeathed his brain to the museum
for the light it m ight throw on the brain structure o f an advanced Europe311'
The juxtaposition, G ould argues, provided a ‘ch illin g insight into the
nineteenth-century m e n ta lite and the history o f racism ’ (G ould 1982: 20)-
But he is not slow to note the double register in w hich such e x h i b i t i ° nS
played. For if it mattered that Broca was w hite and European w hilst SaadJ^
was black and A frican, it mattered just as m uch that he w as a man and she
 MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS
'
n A s he g oes on to note: ‘I found no brains o f w om en, and neither
wf0 >s penis nor any m ale genitalia grace the c o lle c tio n s’ (ibid.: 2 0 ).
he issue to which G ould alludes here was more fully developed in a later
by Sander Gilman. N oting the exten sive interests o f nineteenth-century
St • ce in com parative anatom y as a m eans o f establishing either the essential
sCfference or the backwardness o f black p eop les, Gilman observes that this
Merest rarely extended to the genital organs excep t in the case o f black
* omen w hose genitalia ‘attracted much greater interest in part because they
ere seen as evidence o f an anom alous sexuality not only in black wom en
but in a4 w om en’ (G ilm an 1985b: 89). T his, in turn, reflected the assumption
that a wom an’s generative organs m ight define her essen ce in w ays that was
not true for men.
Nor did the matter rest there. By the m id-nineteenth century, w om en’s
bodies - down to their very bones - were regarded as incom m ensurably
different from m en’s. This resulted in anatom ical d isplays in w hich, as the
radical antithesis o f those at the M usee de l ’hom m e today, the purpose was
to exhibit and dem onstrate unbridgeable, sexual d ifferen ces rooted in the
structures o f m ale and fem ale sk eleton s. This w as done in w ays which
reflected the differential distribution o f the anatom ical gaze to w hich both
Gould and Broca draw attention. If, w here European m ale skeletons were
concerned, the stress fell on the size and shape o f the cranium as a sign o f
the more highly evo lv ed brain o f European m an, constructions o f the
skeletons o f European w om an em phasized her enlarged p elvis. This effected
an anatomical reduction o f wom an to her ‘essential function’ - no m ore, in
Claudia H onniger’s telling phrase, than ‘a w om b on le g s ’ (cited in Duden
1991: 24). It served also to secure her subordination to the male in the further
argument, as Londa Schiebinger sum m arizes it, ‘that the European fem ale
pelvis must necessarily be large in order to accom m odate in the birth canal
the cranium o f the European m ale’ (Schiebinger 1989: 209).
The processes through w hich these incom m ensurably differentiated sexed
bodies were produced w as connected to changes in the functions and contexts
°f anatomical displays. In the R enaissance, deceased human bodies were
most typically displayed in the context o f public d issections. S ince these were
usually performed on the corpses o f felo n s, they form ed a part o f the
dramaturgy o f royal power, a public dem onstration o f the k in g ’s ability to
exercise power over the body even beyond death. T hey were also associated
'J'flh the practices o f carnival in varying and com p lex w a y s.8 It was, indeed,
ls latter association w hich, in Ferrari’s estim ation, helped prompt the
'ghteenth-century developm ent o f anatom ical collectio n s distinct from those
the anatomical theatres at places like Leiden and B ologna in order to
a m eans f ° r teaching anatom y in spaces rem oved from the public
re and its occasion ally turbulent e x c esses (see Ferrari 1987).
COll ^ d evelo p m en t had the further con sequ en ce that access to anatomical
ctions tended to becom e segregated along gender lines. C ollection s o f

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 TECH N O LO G IES OF'PRO G RESS

the type developed by W illiam and John Hunter over the late eighteenth
early nineteenth centuries and subsequently donated to the Royal C o lle g e ^
Surgeons were largely reserved for the ex clu siv ely m ale gaze o f traine
practising doctors and surgeons. The sam e w as true o f m ore р0г> i°r
anatom ical exh ib itions. Richard A ltick notes that m en and w om en w ^
initially admitted together to Benjam in R ackstrow ’s M useum o f A n at 6
and C uriosities, a popular London show, first opened in the 1750s. A lti^
describes this as ‘a com bination o f D on S altero’s knicknackatory and th
reproductive-organ department o f Dr. John Hunter’s m useum ’ in view of hs
com bination o f anatom ical peculiarities with o b sessiv ely detailed wax m odels
and reproductions o f the w om b plus one sp ecim en o f ‘the real thing’
accom panied by a penis ’injected to the state o f erection’ (A ltick 1978: 55)
By the end o f the century, however, handbills advised that ‘a Gentlewoman
attends the Ladies separately’ (ibid.: 5 6 ) - a practice o f sex segregation that
was to be continued by R ackstrow ’s nineteenth-century successors, such as
Dr K ahn’s M useum o f P ath ological A natom y w h ose m ain focu s was an
em b ryological exhibit show ing the grow th o f the ovum from impregnation to
birth, and R eim ler’s A natom ical and E thnological M useum .
A further change, finally, con sisted in a transformation o f the function of
anatom ical exhibits. W ithin R en aissan ce practices o f public dissection, a
good deal was invested in the singularity o f the body: it served an exemplary
function because o f the specific status (crim inal) o f the person w hose body
it was. The body, here, is m oralized but not pathologized. W hile aspects of
earlier practices survived in the popular anatom ical displays described above,
as indeed they did in the m edical co llectio n s o f John Hunter, the nineteenth-
century tendency w as for anatom ical displays to fulfil a norm alizing rather
than a m oralizing function. A s parts o f a new sym bolic econom y o f the human
body, such collectio n s served to construct a set o f anatom ical norms and then
to reinforce those norm s through the exhibition o f pathologized departures
from them. Those norm s, m oreover, w ere increasingly con ceived in evolu­
tionary terms resulting in a set o f hierarchically graded norms appropriate for
different populations. W hen, in 1902, Lom broso established his Museum of
Criminal A nthropology at Turin, the mortal rem ains o f crim inals had been
finally detached from their earlier m oralizing function to serve, now, in being
pathologized in evolutionary terms as atavistic types, as props for n orm al­
izing practices - by this tim e eu gen icist in their conception - directed at the
population as a w hole (see Pick 1986).
T hese, then, are the main changes affectin g the exhibitionary c o n te x ts m
w hich, from the second half o f the eighteenth century, anatom ical re m ain s or
reconstructions - them selves b ecom in g increasingly and im placably diff^
entiated in sexual term s - were ty p ica lly displayed. Thom as L aq u eu r
com p elling d iscu ssion o f the form ation o f the tw o-sex m odel o f humanity
underlines the sign ifican ce o f this production o f sexed anatom ies. Prior to ^
early m odern period, Laqueur argues, there was ‘only one canonical body 3

204
н • fluence
MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS

body was m ale’ (Laqueur 1990: 63 ). Tracing the more or less continuous
*^eas l'le Roman physician G alen o f Pergam um on
10 ropean m edical thought through to and beyond the R enaissance, Laqueur
ws how the fem ale body was typ ically view ed as an inferior version o f
S male body. This hierarchized construction o f the relations b etw een the
. and fem ale bodies w as genitally centred in that it depended on the b elief
the fem ale organs o f generation w ere an inverted, and for that reason
!^ег)0г, version o f the m ale organs o f generation.9 W hile this necessarily
' n t a i l e d that woman was m easured as lesser, as im perfect, in relation to norms
0f anatomical perfection that were unam biguously and ex p licitly m ale, it
e ually entailed that m en and w om en were not view ed as radically distinct
from one another, as incom m ensurably separate. To the contrary, the
commonality in the structure o f their genital organs and the related fact that
these were view ed as functioning in virtually the sam e fashion in the process
of generation, made the notion o f tw o sex es differentiated from one another
in terms o f characteristics attributed to foundational d ifferen ces in their
aenitalia literally unthinkable. V iew e d as, gen itally, a lesser m an, the
c o n s e q u e n c e , as Laqueur puts it, was that 'm an is the m easure o f all things,
and woman does not exist as an o n tologically distinct categ o ry ’ (ibid.: 62).
In this light, Londa S chiebinger (1 9 8 9 ) argues, it is significant that
illustrations o f the human skeleton d esign ed for teaching purposes were
neuter until the early nineteenth century and that, w hen the fem ale skeleton
did make its first appearance, it w as in the form o f an im perfect realization
of the male skeleton rather than as an o steological structure o f a radically
distinct type. In the m id-to-later d ecad es o f the century, however, the fem ale
anatomy w as subjected to an in creasin gly reductive gaze. A s Ludm illa
Jordanova has show n in her d iscu ssion o f W illiam H unter’s anatom ical
drawings and anatom ical m odels fashioned in wax, w om en ’s genitalia, which
had been m odestly veiled in earlier m edical teaching aids and illustrations,
were gazed at and through in unrelenting detail (see Jordanova 1980, 1985).
This process, Jordanova argues, in subjecting the b odies o f w om en to the
increasingly penetrative vision o f a m ale scien ce, served to ‘u n clo th e’ an
essentially fem inine nature rooted in a now radically differentiated repro­
ductive system . A lthough disagreeing that w om en’s b odies were any more
objected to such a d issectin g gaze than m en’s, Laqueur’s co n clu sio n s point
ln the same direction: the organization o f an anatom ical field in w hich male
and fem ale bodies no longer confronted one another as ‘hierarchically,
Vertically, ordered versions o f one s e x ’ but as ‘horizontally ordered oppos-
ltes>as incom m ensurable’ (Laqueur 1990: 10).
T h ese developm ents have been attributed to a variety o f factors: to the
^ rug g le o f m ale m ed icine to w rest control over w om en ’s reproductive
bondc"ons from m idw ives; to the assertion o f political control over w om en’s
^ les in the context o f the pow erfully anti-fem inist strain o f the French
v°lution w hich sought to repulse w om en from the public sphere; 10 and to

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 TECH NOLOGIES OF PROGRESS

the em ergence o f the dom estic sphere as one to w hich w om en were ‘natural]
suited by their b iologically distinct b odies and the different temperaments^
which such foundational b iological structures were held to g iv e rise. Laque^
is careful to insist, however, that the ascendancy o f the v iew that the Г
sexes w ere incom m ensurable o p p o sites did not entail the com plete dis°
placem ent o f the sin g le-sex m odel w hich, he su ggests, resurfaced in partiC(J
lar regions o f sexual representation. E volutionary theory was a case in p 0 jnJ
as it could be ‘interpreted to support the notion o f an infinitely graded scale
rem iniscent o f the o n e-sex m odel, on w hich w om en were low er than" men’
(Laqueur 1990: 293). Schiebinger (1 9 8 9 ) is more em phatic: where m ales and
fem ales were now considered each to be perfect in their differences, such
d ifferen ces were arranged hierarchically - man, w hile no longer more perfect
than w om an, em erged as sim ply m ore evolved .
In short, the m ove from a o n e-sex to tw o -sex anatom ical order was
sim ultaneously a shift from an ordering o f sexed bodies that was atemporal -
w om an’s place w ithin the hierarchy o f being as an im perfect man was
d estined to be perm anent w ithin the on e-sex m odel - to one that was
h istoricized. Over the second h alf o f the nineteenth century, when the view
o f the incom m ensurability o f m en’s and w om en ’s bodies encountered the
d evelop in g body o f evolutionary so c ia l thought, the result w as to place
w om an not b elow man but behind him . This was them atized in various ways
depending on the points o f com parison chosen for calibrating the degree of
w om an’s underdevelopm ent: children, ‘sa v a g es’, the higher primates, crim­
inals - all o f these, w ithin one strain or another o f evolutionary thought,
served as the benchmarks to establish w om an’s p lace on the evolutionary
ladder. 11 T heoretically, o f course, the prem ises o f evolutionary theory
allow ed that the gap betw een men and w om en m ight be closed through time;
indeed, this was p recisely the ground taken by m any fem inists in their early
and d ifficult confrontations with D arw inian theory. 12 In one w ay or another,
this progressive potential o f evolutionary thought w as closed down within
the m ore influential applications o f evolutionary theory to the field o f sexual
d ifferences.
D evelopm ents in craniology w ere particularly im portant here. For these
discredited the earlier p ractices o f phrenology, w hich had allow ed that the
form s o f self-k n o w led g e acquired through this technique m ight lead to forms
o f self-im provem en t through w hich m ental ca p a cities, including those of
w om en, m ight be increased. In their place they substituted a conception m
w hich w om an ’s low er m ental cap acity w as regarded as the i n e s c a p a b l e
lim itation o f her inherently inferior skull size (see R ussett 1989; Fee 1976,
1979). W orse still, in what w as clearly a virulent an ti-fem inist c a m p a ig n
the last quarter o f the century saw the use o f Spencerian a rg u m e n ts to
su ggest that w om en cou ld only exp ect to fall further behind men on the
ladder o f evolution ary developm en t. S ince m en ’s and w om en ’s bodies
differed m ore sharply in ‘more ad van ced ’ civ iliz a tio n s than they did among

206
р vageS’’ anc* s 'nce
MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS

seem ed that this must be the result o f more sharply

S regated sex roles in so c ietie s w here the d ivision o f labour w as more
d a n c e d , the con clusion drawn w as that, from the point o f v ie w o f the
11 ecies as a w hole, it w as crucial that w om en should remain in the dom estic
h re for w hich their anatom ies had prepared them even if this m eant that
evolutionary gap betw een the sexes could only increase (see Duffin 1978;
Sayers 1982).
Of c o u rs e , these w ere not the on ly w ays in w hich the prem ises o f
oiutionary thought got translated into social narratives o f sex and gender.
And they were opposed. Flavia A laya notes how Harriet Taylor and John
Stuart M ill made a special point o f congratulating a fem inist conference for
sticking out against the tide o f debate in ch oosin g n o t to debate questions
concerning m en’s and w om en ’s natural aptitudes (A laya 1977: 2 6 3 ). H ow ­
ever, the tendencies I have focused on were the prevailing ones, esp ecia lly
where sexed anatom ies w ere exhibited. How, precisely, these assum ptions
were reflected in the details o f m useum displays is som etim es d ifficult to
determine as this is not an esp e cia lly w ell-d evelo p ed area o f m useum
research. We know that, in m useum s o f natural history and eth nological
museums, the skeletons and crania o f w om en were arranged in relation to
those o f men to dem onstrate their low er stage o f developm ent. T hey were
also arranged in relation to those o f ‘sa v a g e s’ to su gg est a finely calibrated
scale o f human evolution leading from the evolutionary base o f prim itive
women through prim itive m en to European w om en and, finally, European
men. We know also that the conventions o f taxiderm y favoured m ale-centred
displays in their reconstructions o f the animal kingdom . At the Am erican
Museum o f Natural History, where anim al life w as portrayed in an evolu ­
tionary sequence o f dioram as depicting habitat groupings, each display was
governed by a clear sexual hierarchy with the m ale bein g privileged in being
accorded the role o f representing the m ost perfect and fu lly developed form
of each sp ecies (see Haraway 1992).
It is, then, p lausible to assum e that, for w om en, the opportunity the
museum offered to conduct a perform ative realization o f evolutionary
narratives was o f a different kind than that available to men. W ithin the
museum’s ‘b ack tellin g’ structure, European wom an encountered h erself as
both advanced and backward, ahead o f her ‘sa vage’ brothers and sisters but
behind the European m ale. She was anatom ized in such a way that she was
Unable to participate fu lly in' the progressive perform ance for which her body
eryed as a prop. The m useum ’s narrative was one that she cou ld never
c°mplete. To visit eth n ological or natural co llec tio n s, 1 have su ggested .
Provided an opportunity for checking out how one measured up in relation
th^r° 8ress’s advance. If so, it was an opportunity w hich, for w om en, meant
they could never fu lly m easure up to the h ighest lev els o f human
evelopment.
^ nd som etim es literally so. Francis Galton, w hose theory and practice o f

207
 TECHNOLOGIES 6 f PROGRESS
anthropom etric m easurem ent w as to prove one o f the m ost influent-
techniques for producing the body as a zone o f alm ost infinitely graded
hierarchized sexual and racial d ifferen ces, set up an anthropometric la b o ^
ory at the International Health E xhibition held at South K ensington in
There, for a charge o f threepence, m en and w om en were offered
opportunity o f having a series o f anatom ical m easurem ents taken that wo i6
enable them to assess where they fitted on the evolutionary scale o f thin
Initially, the requirem ents o f so cia l tact prevented the measurement
w om en ’s skulls as this w ould have required the rem oval o f their bonnets and
the disturbance o f their hair styles (see Forrest 1974: 181). However, this
precautionary gallantry was dispensed with w hen, in 1885, the laboratory was
transferred to the South K ensington M useum . For eight years, the Museum's
visitors, men and w om en, continued to have their anatom ical and cranial
m easurem ents taken and recorded as part o f G abon’s accum ulating record of
the evolutionary differentiation o f the sex es. In so doing, they helped
perpetuate the narrative m achinery w hich regulated their performances.
8
T HE S H A P I N G OF
THI N G S TO C O M E
EXPO ’88
Expositions are am ong the m ost d istin ctive o f m od ern ity’s sym b olic in ven ­
t i o n s in that, as contrived events look in g for a pretext to happen, they have
been obliged to seek the o cca sio n s for their staging outside them selves.
While by no m eans so le ly so, the m ost favoured candidate for this role has
been that other sym b olic invention o f m odernity, the national celebration.
The Philadelphia C entennial E xp o sitio n o f 1876, marking a century o f
American independence, thus counts as the first in a lon g lin e o f exp osition s
held in conjunction w ith celebrations marking the passage o f national time.
The Melbourne International E xhibition held in 1888 in association with the
first centenary o f A u stra lia ’s European settlem ent; the E xp osition U ni-
verselle held in Paris the fo llo w in g year as a part o f the centenary o f the
French R evolution; and E xpo ’6 7 , hosted by M ontreal in the m idst o f
Canada’s first centennial celebrations, are a few exam ples that m ight be
cited. Even where the con n ection has not been so direct as in these instances,
expositions have usually sought som e w ay o f inserting th em selves into the
symbolic rhythms o f national histories. C h ica g o ’s 1893 W orld’s C olum bian
Exhibition was thus staged to celebrate the 400th anniversary o f C olu m b us’s
discovery o f the A m ericas, w hile the N ew York W orld’s Fair o f 1939 sought
its national legitim ation in the sesquicentenary o f W ashington’s presidential
inauguration. 1
Yet it is only rarely that the synchronization o f these tw o kinds o f events
has resulted in their sym bolic fusion. Indeed, and esp ecia lly in the twentieth
century, their sim ultaneity has m ore often served to mark the differences
between them, throwing into relief the contrivance o f their association. For
while both events are. the p rogenies o f m odernity, they are ultim ately
conceived and organized in relation to different tim es. If centennial celebra-
tl0ns and the like tick to the clock o f the nation, marking its passage through
Calendrical tim e in drawing up sym b olic inventories o f its achievem ents,
exPositions tick to the international tim e o f m odernity itself. They mark the
Passage o f progress, a tim e w ithout frontiers, w h ile the inventories they
r8anize are, at least ideally, on es w hich mark the achievem ents o f the
10nally undifferentiated subject o f humanity.
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 T EC H N O LO G IE S OF PROGRESS

This is not to su ggest a com p lete d issociation o f these tw o tempor

registers. Indeed, exp osition s have usually aim ed to overlap these tw o tim
- o f nation and o f m odernity - on to one another by projecting the host natic^
as am ong the forem ost representatives o f the tim e, and tasks, o f m odernit*1
This w as the pattern established by the Great Exhibition o f 1851 and repeated
in m ost o f the major nineteenth-century exp osition s. W here these were hosted
by m etropolitan pow ers, the bringing o f these tw o tim es together could be
accom plished with som e con viction . For where national tim e is also imperial
tim e, its internationalization is but a discursive hop, step and a jum p/2 The
situation, however, is different w here exp osition s are hosted by societies on
the periphery o f the world capitalist order. For, in such cases, the annexation
o f the tim e o f the nation to the tim e o f m odernity requires that the former be
shorn o f all that is local and lim itin g, and thus o f all that is specific to it
W here this is so, and where exp ositio n s and national celebrations coincide
the tw o are likely to play in different them atic registers, constantly under­
scoring their mutual incom patibility.3
An added difficulty is that there is often a third tim e com peting with the
tim es o f both the nation and m odernity: that o f the host city. Again, the
resulting tensions m ay scarcely be noticeab le where the host city is the capital
city o f a major m etropolitan power. However, they m ay becom e acute where
exp ositio n s are held in provin cial centres, and esp ecia lly so in federal
so c ietie s in view o f the strong inter-state and inter-city rivalries these
characteristically generate. In such circum stances, the host city typically
seeks to hitch itse lf directly into the tim e o f m odernity, by-passing the nation
- indeed, undercutting it - in representing itse lf as em bodying the spirit of
progress m ore adequately than either the national capital or rival provincial
cities. W here this is so - and C h ica g o ’s 1893 W orld’s Columbian Exhibition
is the m ost frequently cited prototype - exp osition s are primarily city events.
Caught up more in the w eb o f local than o f national p olitics, they are alsd
typ ically sites for the enunciation o f city rather than (and som etim es in
opposition to) national rhetorics.
B risb ane’s Expo ’ 88 w as no excep tion to these general rules. Indeed, as an
expo held in a provincial city in a peripheral country during the m idst of its
B icentennial celebrations, it w as a paradigm case o f the ultim ate dissociation
o f the three tim es - o f the city, the nation and m odernity - it installed itself
betw een. B illed as the b iggest event o f the Bicentenary, and granted quasi-
official recogn ition as such, it w as neither sponsored nor funded by the
Australian B icentennial Authority. G overned by a separate authority whose
lin es o f resp onsibility ran, on the one hand, to the Q ueensland State
G overnm ent and, on the other, to the Bureau International des Expositions
(BIE), its organizational structures were form ally unrelated to those e s t a b
fished for the Bicentenary. M oreover, its them e — leisure in the age
techn ology - w hich, in accordance with the rules o f the BIE, had both to be
international in con ception and to dem onstrate the achievem ents o f progresS>

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 THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME

jl0wed little connection to be made with the lexicon o f nationing rhetorics

3 evident elsew here in Australia throughout 1 9 8 8 . V isitin g the Expo w as, in
Sh's s e n s e , som ething o f a w elcom e re lie f from the discourses o f 1 9 8 8 . The
t significant con cession s made to these were the Captain Cook Pavilion
hicb, in *ts exhibition o f Cook m em orabilia, ech oed to the tunes o f the
^ tion’s foundation and settlem ent, and the Australian Pavilion - o f which
jflQre later. For the m ost part, however, the stress fell not on the sym bolic
time o f the nation but on the insertion o f the nation into the international time
0f modernity.
And it fell m ost esp ecially on the insertion o f Brisbane into the tim e o f
modernity. The Expo m otto - ‘Together w e ’ll show the w orld ’ - had many
resonances, accum ulating in their sign ifican ce as the Expo unfolded. M ost
obviously, it referred to the representational am bition o f the ex p osition form
_ that is, to render the w hole world m etonym ically present - as, indeed, to
the aspiration that the w orld, in the form o f tourists, w ould com e to see this
metonymic assem b lage o f itself. Its m ost crucial resonances, however,
derived from its conception o f the ‘w e ’ w ho were to do the show ing. For this
was, most assuredly, not the national ‘w e ’ o f ‘all A ustralians’ through which
we were so constantly hailed throughout the Bicentenary. On the contrary,
this ‘w e ’ was intended to recruit a m ore local subject and organize it in
opposition to the national ‘w e ’. It w as Q ueenslanders, and esp ecia lly
Brisbaners, w ho were hailed as the subjects o f this act o f show ing - an act
of showing in w hich it mattered less what w e show ed than that w e confound
all the knockers and show ed that w e could do it, that w e could put on the
Expo that the other states had proved too faint-hearted-to attempt. W hat was
to be shown, in other words, w as B risb an e’s capacity to put on the show.
In brief, Expo ’ 88 w as, first and forem ost, an event in the life o f its host
city; an instrument that w as both to e ffec t and signal its transform ation from
a provincial backwater into a world city representing the very cutting-edge
of modernity - from, as tw o critics put it, ‘B ackw ood s into The Future’ (Fry
and W illis 1 9 8 8 ) . And it mattered little, in this respect, if, as proved to be
the case, no one else noticed. For if Expo ’ 88 exceed ed its visitor targets, this
was less because the w orld or even the rest o f A ustralia cam e to see the show
than because o f the high number o f repeat visits m ade by Q ueenslanders -
and especially by those resident in Brisbane or its im m ediate environs (Craik
1989). The consequence was an Expo in which the subject o f the show and
'ts addressee were curiousJy interm ingled; in w hich the primary w itness to
Brisbane’s dem onstration o f its capacity to put on the show was the city itself.
tiaracterized, in one new spaper report, as ‘the drug that kept Brisbane in
®We o f itself for six m onths’ (M elb o u rn e S u n , 3 1 O ctober 1 9 8 8 ) , Expo ’ 8 8
’ mdeed, construct the city in a peculiarly m esm eric relationship to itself
’ ln watching it dem onstrate to itse lf its own capacity to show that it could
on the show, Brisbane im aginarily leapfrogged itse lf over the shoulders
Sydney and M elbourne to bask in a temporary m etropolitan status.

211
 T EC H N O LO G IE S OF PROGRESS

Expo ’ 88 was, then, in all these respects, an intensely local affair. So, f0
the m ost part, were the political controversies w hich surrounded it. True ■
did o ccasion ally get em broiled in the national political debates whic^
accom panied the Bicentenary. The use o f an A m erican com pany to provij
audio-visual techn ology for the Australian P avilion provoked a major p0ijt
ical scandal, although one w hich had run its course before the Expo op en ed 5
Expo w as also a target for Aboriginal protests, although there was sotne
d ifferen ce o f opinion am ong A boriginal groups as to whether Expo should
or should not be regarded as a part o f the Bicentenary and, accordingly
different v iew s as to the appropriate p olitical stances to be adopted in relation
to it.6 For the m ost part, however, the protests w hich accom panied Expo’s
planning and execution had a local, city flavour: protests against the razing
o f traditional inner-city residential zon es to m ake way for the Expo site-
protests against landlords w ho evicted long-term tenants in order to charge
inflated rents during the Expo period; allegations o f p olice harassment of gays
as part o f a pre-Expo city clean-up; street m arches by prostitutes in protest
at the lo ss o f busin ess inflicted on B risbane’s night life by the attractions of
Expo; and the exertion o f ‘people p o w er’ in protest at the initial plans for the
redevelopm ent o f the Expo site as a tourist m eg a p o lis.7
There w as, as a con seq u en ce, very little criticism o f E xpo itself. The
p olitics o f what w as show n and done there - o f the kind o f event it was and
the nature o f the experience it offered - were largely by-passed in a critical
clim ate concerned m ore with either its im pact on the c ity ’s economy,
residential structure and public utilities or with the more general politics of
the B icentenary w hich, in part, E xpo side-stepped. W hile I cannot entirely
com pensate for this deficit here, a consideration o f the respects in which the
Expo script, in organizing the v isito r’s exp erience, served as an instrument
for a sp ecifically regional program m e o f civ ic m odernization m ight go some
way towards doing so.
To engage with matters o f this kind, however, requires that Expo '88 be
considered in relation to the longer history o f the exp osition form and the
kind o f festival o f m odernity it em b odies. For it w as this history that wrote
many aspects o f the Expo script, governing its conception and shaping its
main contours in w ays w hich influenced the experience o f its visitors as
deeply and fundam entally as any o f the specifically Australian, Q u e e n s l a n d
or city resonances that were lent to that script. W hile an exhaustive a c c o u n t
o f the origins and developm ent o f exp osition s cannot be attempted here, some
brief gen ealogical excavations o f their origins and early history will раУ
d ivid en ds, and particularly if conducted with a v iew to highlighting №
perform ative rather than the representational aspects o f the exposition scrip1-
W hen view ed in this light, I shall suggest, exp osition s are best regarded a
providing their visitors not, as is com m only supposed, with texts for reading’
but, rather, with props for exercisin g.

212
 TH E S H A P IN G OF T H IN G S TO C O M E

E V O L U T IO N A R Y E X E R C IS E S

was only with the exp osition s o f the nineteenth century’, U m berto Eco
ueSi ‘that the m arvels o f the year 2 0 0 0 began to be announced.’ N o matter
3 w much earlier collectio n s, such as the W und erka m m ern o f the sixteenth
tury, m ight have resem bled m odern ex p osition s in their concern to
• ventorize the past, they were crucially different, in E c o ’s estim ation, in
^ntaining ‘nothing w hich pointed to the future’ (E co 1987: 293). Foucault
C akes a sim ilar point w hen he contrasts the ‘utopias o f ultimate developm en t’
hich predominated in the nineteenth century with the earlier functioning o f
utopia as ‘a fantasy o f o rig in s’, accounting for the transition from the latter
to the former in terms o f the influence o f a new conception o f k now ledge in
which things are given and know n in the form o f ‘a series, o f sequential
connection, and o f developm en t’ (Foucault 1970: 262). If the arrangem ent o f
objects within an eighteenth-century cabinet o f cu riosities derived its c o ­
gency from its reference to the ideal taxonom y o f the w orld’s beginning,
when everything h a d b een in its proper place, the nineteenth-century ex ­
position - and m useum - points to a future in w hich everything w ill have
arrived at its proper place.
In association with these changes - indeed, as part o f them, as both their
conditions and effects - the sem iotic properties o f the objects displayed
underwent an equally far-reaching transform ation. The principal sem iotic
value of the object in a cabinet o f cu riosities was thus, as Carol Breckenridge
summarizes it, that o f its ow n sin g u la rity :

The object in a w onder cabinet celebrated nothing but itse lf as rare,

sensational, and unusual. Neither beauty nor history appear to have been
promoted as a value by w hich to behold the housed object. O bjects were
judged according to the am azem ent they aroused largely because they
were rare, uncom m on, and even unthought o f creations.
(Breckenridge 1989: 200)

% the Great Exhibition o f 1851, however, the sem iotic value o f the object
^splayed is rep rese n ta tive. W hether a raw m aterial, instrument o f production
0r finished product; w hether a work o f art or o f manufacture; w hether from
Britain, India, France or Am erica - m ost things at the Crystal Palace were
'splayed as representative o f a stage w ithin an evolutionary series leading
m the sim ple to the com plex. Subsequent nineteenth-century exp osition s
^ ed little to this aspect o f the form excep t to increase its representational
sity v j a co n struction o f evolutionary series that were everm ore
jntens'Ve and totalizing in their ambit: the organization o f national pavilions
0r, n ev°lutionary hierarchy o f racial zon es, the construction o f ‘c o lo n ia l’
^native’ villages, and so on (G reenhalgh 1988; R ydell 1984).
eXpo , this’ then, by w ay o f saying that the underlying rhetoric o f the
s'tion form is one o f progress. A fam iliar point, no doubt. But what are

213
 T ECH NOLOGIES OF'PRO GRESS

w e to make o f it? M ost accounts, stressing the representational function^

o f this rhetoric, v ie w it as an id eo lo g ica l m eans for the organization ^
consent to bourgeois hegem ony given the respects in w hich the evolution °f
story it tells culm inates in the triumphal achievem ents o f conternpor ^
capitalism . W hile not w ishing to gainsay this, F oucault’s com m ents on th^
relations betw een ‘the d iscovery o f an evolution in terms o f “progress’” aric|
the coincident em ergence o f what he characterizes as the ‘evolutive tirne'
constituted by disciplinary m ethods o f training su ggest another perspectiv
from w hich the exp osition al functioning o f this rhetoric m ight be assessed
For evolutive tim e, in F oucault’s con ception , is not a m eans o f representin
pow er but is rather directly bound up with, and serves as a m eans for,
exercise. The differentiation o f tim e into a series o f stages (classes in a
sch ool, say); the administration o f exam inations to determ ine whether an
individual may progress from one stage to the next; the retardation of the
scheduled progress o f those w ho fail to pass such tests: in these ways there
is constituted a linear tim e w hose orientation towards som e terminal point
a llow s the intervention o f disciplinary ex ercises w hich prepare the individual
for, and mark his or her p assage through, ev o lu tiv e tim e. ‘B y bending
behaviour towards a terminal state,’ Foucault w rites, ‘exercise makes pos­
sib le a perpetual characterization o f the individual either in relation to this
term, in relation to other individuals, or in relation to a type o f itinerary’
(Foucault 1977: 161). Yet - and this is the key to the relations between
disciplinary pow er and evolutive tim e - to an itinerary without end in the
sense that each term inal state, once it is reached, turns out to be only a step
towards a further beckoning^task resulting in a ‘p olitical technology of the
body and o f duration’ w hich ‘tends towards a subjection that has never
reached its lim it’ (ibid.: 162).
Perhaps, then, the exp osition ary arrangem ent o f things, peoples and
civilization s, all in sequential toil towards a beckoning future, should be
view ed less as a field o f representations to be assessed for its ideological
effec ts than as an_injunctiom th e layin g-out o f a task, a performative
im perative in w hich the visitor, exercisin g in the intersections o f the
evolutionary tim e o f progress and the evolu tive tim e o f d iscipline, is enlisted
for the lim itless project o f m odernity. There are, o f course, many v e rsio n s ot
this project. At exp osition s, however, the idea o f progress has typically been
them atized tech n ologically via the projection o f a line betw een past, present
and future tech n ologies - the latter, as in the D em ocracity o f N ew York s
1939 W orld’s Fair, doubling as p rogress’s m eans and its destination.8 In
way, in offering both an inventory and a telos, in sum m arizing the c o u rse о
m ankind’s advance and plotting its future path, exp osition s allow - invite an^
in cite - us to practise what w e m ust becom e if progress is to progress, and i
w e are to keep up with it. They place us on a road which requires that we see
ou rselves as in need o f incessant self-m odernization if w e ’re to get to whefe
w e ’re headed.

214
 THE SHAPING OF T HINGS TO COM E

The theme o f Expo ’88 - leisure in the age o f techn ology - lent itself w ell
this m odernizing im perative. M odern exp osition s, Eco has argued, are
t0 st clearly distinct from their nineteenth-century predecessors in according
attention to what they show than to the m eans o f its presentation. The
■nternational standardization o f productive tech n olog ies and, consequently,
0f their products deprives these o f any potential com p etitive display value,
with the result that the m eans o f d isplaying are accorded an increased
.^nificance in this regard. ‘Each cou n try’, as E co puts it, ‘sh ow s itself by
the way in which it is able to present the same thing other countries could
also present. The prestige gam e is w on by the country that best tells what it
does, independently o f what it actually d o e s’ (E co 1987: 2 96). This was
written with M ontreal’s Expo ’67 in m ind. Robert A nderson and Eleanor
Wachtel. writing in the m idst o f V ancouver’s E xpo ’86, confirm ed this
tendency in noting, o f the tradition o f exh ib iting new in ven tions at e x ­
positions, that the ‘invention show n is now seldom a thing; it is the method
of display itse lf’.9
There are, o f course, m any w ays in w hich a m odernist rhetoric inform ed
the expositionary strategies o f E xpo ’88. A lthough the global nineteenth-
century narrative constructions in w hich things, p eo p les and civ iliza tio n s
were hierarchically ranked and arranged in evolution ary toil towards the
present were not much in evid en ce, their ec h o e s certainly w ere. The
construction o f a P acific L agoon, m id-w ay b etw een the A m erican and
Japanese P avilions (see Figure 8.1), thus provided an im aginary retreat from
the Expo sea o f m odernity, one in w hich, in h ow ever id ea lized and
romanticized a fashion, Pacific Islanders were assign ed the role o f repre­
senting the backwardness from w hich progress had p rogressed. 10 Sim ilarly,
in many o f the national P avilions, the tim e o f the nation and that o f m odernity
were articulated to one another, albeit by m eans o f a range o f presentational
strategies. In the U nited K ingdom P avilion , for exam p le, their articulation
took the form o f a disjunction b etw een the ou tside entertainm ent areas -
stressing, in an ‘au th en tic’ E nglish pub and an o n g o in g perform ance o f
cockney m usicals, the traditional asp ects o f E n glish life - and the interior,
dominated by a hi-tech, m ulti-screen presentation o f leisure a ctiv ities in
Britain. 11 In the Australian P avilion, by contrast, the tim e o f the nation and
that of m odernity were m elded together via the use o f h i-tech display
techniques to offer, in the R ainbow sphere (described, in the official souvenir
Programme, as ‘one o f the m ost sophisticated audio-visual productions ever
evised - another world first for A ustralia'), a k aleid osco p ic portrayal o f life
. modern, m ulticultural Australia. This was com plem ented by an illusion-
lshc rendition o f the Rainbow Serpent legend in an anim ated dioram a, a h i­
de Version ° f the Dream tim e w hich served to anchor national tim e in the
P time o f A boriginal history w h ile sim u ltan eou sly m odernizing that time
n jschnologizing it (see Figure 8.2).
Was, however, and in confirm ation o f E c o ’s argum ent, ty p ica lly the

215
 Figure 8.1 Site map of World Expo ’88, B r i s b a n e
Source: Reproduced with kind permission of the South Bank Corporation
 THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COM E

Figure 8.2 The ‘Rainbowsphere’

Source: Us ed with per m ission from Selcom.

technologies used in the organization o f displays that carried the them e o f

progress. For it w as these w hich functioned as both the k ey sign s and
organizers o f m odernity. They served as the form er in dividing the world up
into different blocs: those w hose place at the cutting edge o f m odernity was
symbolized by their use o f advanced vid eo and com puter display techn ologies
(Europe, North A m erica, Japan, Australia); those w hich, in displaying
artefacts as if in a nineteenth-century m useum rather than m ulti-m edia
demonstrations, were not yet m odern enough to be postm odern (R ussia,
China); and those w hich, in relying solely on liv e performers to exhibit their
culture, sym bolized the past o f a pre-technological age in relation to which
°ur advance m ight be measured (Fiji, Tonga). And they served as organizers
°f modernity in em bodying, in their very form , a beckoning future. ‘S ee your
Past, present and future in a new d im ension at the Fujitsu p a v ilio n ’, the advert
f°r one o f the corporate pavilions read, where the past and present referred
0 a film account o f human evolution and the future to the already present
eans o f telling that account: a com puter-generated 3D m ovie.
In this regard, then, Expo pointed to a future. Y et it also, in instantiating
tlj ture —that is, rendering it present, givin g it a concrete form - afforded
e visitor the m eans with which to practise for it and thus to engage in an
^ficipatory futuring o f the self. The advanced interactive leisure techno-
§les in the Technoplaza thus, in inviting the visitor to play and learn,

217
 T ECH NOLOGIES OF PROGRESS

functioned less as representations than as instruments o f self

m eans for engaging in a future orientated practice o f the self a faSll'0n'ns
for what one is to becom e. The sam e w as true o f the use o f a d v a n ^ Ге^еаг^
techn ology in the various on -site visitor inform ation system s w l ^ C° mputer
the future present in the form o f a dem and and a challenge- J Ch Гевдеген
or get lost! ё ' Update yourSe,f
W hile the articulations o f this futuring o f the se lf v a r ie d from
pavilion to another, these were all overshadow ed by its embodinT ПЭ1'°Па|
corporate pavilions where m odernity, in the form o f advanced h™ *П tlle
o f consum ption, w as free to be its ow n sign and referent In thi n° log*es
Expo ’ 88 confirm ed a cum ulative tw entieth-century tendency for t h e ^ ^ 601'
ate pavilion , once a m arginal feature o f the exposition form to нС0ГР° Г
national p avilion s as the organizing centres o f expositional rheto ^
p rogress. 12 If, in the national p avilion s o f Europe and North AmiT' ° f
advanced leisure tech n ologies were able to serve as signs o f the natio^'
m odernity, this was only because, in the corporate displays - such as that S
the I B M pavilion and the Technoplaza (dom inated by displays of companies
like H itachi) - the sam e tech n olog ies sym bolized the internationally un
differentiated tim e o f the m ultinational corporation to which national times
could then be annexed in a discourse o f m odernization (see Figure 8.3).
Yet it w as also this construction o f an undifferentiated time of modernity
w hich allow ed the m ore local tim e o f the city to be connected to it and thus,
in a m anner typical o f ‘second city first’ rhetorics, to catapult itself ahead of
the national tim e. 13 Tony Fry and A nne-M arie W illis correctly identified
m any o f these asp ects o f Expo ’ 88 in the prospective critique they offered
som e m onths before its com m encem ent. The intention o f the Expo, they
argued, w as ‘to sign ify to the w orld, the nation, and the local area that the
“ international”, in the form o f the appearance o f advanced modernity, has
arrived’ (Fry and W illis 1988: 132). In this respect, they suggested, the event
o f Expo itse lf w as (or w ould be) less important than its planned relation to
its after-event: its ‘co-op tion in the process o f recoding the once ov®r®r° '! .
country tow n ” as a m odern, q uasi-postm odern, progressive city ^ ^
137). Y et, in sigh tful though their criticism s are, Fry and ^ .d *IS^ ° tjng
altogether escape the pull o f the field o f discourse they descri e ^ (a[)
from Sydney, they are thus unable to resist a degree o f m^ ° ncja| jn
con d escen sion , castigatin g Brisbane for revealing itself t<> de pr°n jts very
its very attempts to escap e provinciality, as still a b a c k woo ^ betljnd
claim s to be m odern - and thereby n ecessarily show ing ltse^ nl0dernity s
the tim es in its failure to register the postm odernist c ritiq u e о
am bition s. 14 . n j 0 urna|isis
In this, they m erely anticipated the terms in which sou ^ ^tfich. ia
w ould depict Expo - the u nconvincing m odern f a q a d t о a start qua,itie!*
failin g to d isguise its backwardness, m erely dem onstrate! lts^ ve gris*5^
- thus reproducing the very discursive c o n d itio n s w ic

218
 THE S H A P IN G OF T H IN G S TO C O M E

first’ rhetoric its strong local e d g e . 15

15 Yet, as with the more
,.cc O ^ 'CX{\ ts o f the expositionary discourse o f progress, it is not m erely as
^neral aSPL selltations that w e need to assess the city aspects o f Expo ’88 ’s
^set °f r£^ e discourse. Rather, and again, w e need to understand that the
niodern!ZII1Qf such events proceeds not just via the logic o f signs but via signs
effectivlt-v 'nings and exercises which aim at altering less the con sciousness
a>PartS° onduct o f individuals. E xp o’s significance in this regard, that is,
than *he Cassessed less in terms o f its su asive qualities than o f its capacity
has to 0 specific norm s o f conduct and codes o f civ ility orientated to
f0 rements o f a m odernized city ethos. To understand how E xpo ’88
the re4ul regar(j, however, it w ill be necessary, first, to expand the
HinCt'.one ,_
tUnCt: of this thumbnail gen ealogy o f the exposition form in considering its
scope о jn providing a training in civ ics.
historic^*

CIVIC CALLISTHENICS

T he effects o f expositions, no less than those o f bicentenaries, are not lim ited
to ihe moments o f their occurrence. Preceded by the publicity apparatuses
which ‘trail’ their central discursive preoccupations long before their o p en ­
ing, expositions have proved equally important as the occasion s for cultural
and symbolic bequests to their host cities. A lthough som ew hat atypical, the
Eiffel Tower, a legacy o f the 1889 Paris exp osition , is the m ost obvious
example. The more usual pattern, how ever, has been for ex p o sitio n s to
stimulate the developm ent o f public m useum s, often supplying these with
their buildings and initial co llectio n s. The Great E xhibition o f 1851, in
providing the spur for the d evelopm ent o f L ondon’s South K ensington
Museum com plex, 16 thus set an exam p le that was repeated elsew h ere -
Chicago’s great public m useum s spring from the 1893 C olum bian Exhibition
-and often, as was the case with the establishm ent o f V icto ria ’s Industrial
and Technological Museum in the wake o f the 1866 Intercolonial Exhibition,
•jh the South Kensington m odel directly in mind (see Perry 1972: 2 ).
ihe"1 D a n e ’s case, however, the m useum s preceded the exposition with
its т ц П*Пё’ 3 couPle ° f years earlier, o f the Q ueensland Cultural Centre with
bUiidi SeUm 3nC* 3rt § а11егУ’ shifted from their earlier prem ises to new
R i v e r ^SSe E‘Sure 8.4). D eveloped on the south bank o f the Brisbane
ized the 3Cent t0 Expo site, this hyper-m odern cultural com plex sym bol-
Do«m!er?*Zat'0n C1V1C hfe for w hich Expo w as to ^ pave the
L . 1 V - way.
V V U j..

residil e n t i a l e “У a forcible clearance o f old industrial and w orking-class

,tlat was r>areaS’ ExP° betokened the beckoning m odernization o f Brisbane
Prefigured ' n?ISe(^ ln Plans for the site ’s redevelopm ent, a m odernization
lll's senSe П 1 6 sE’n in 8 face o f the new at the Cultural Centre. A lthough, in
j^'^ged lts ow n bequest, only one part o f Expo itself was
П^е °fficiai ° rrn'n§ a Part o f this future - the World Expo Park, described
Pr°gram m e as a ‘collection o f space-orientated rides, exhibits

219
 T E C H N O L O G I E S O F F VROGRES S

In 1788, who could have imagined a days of work in a few short hours?
time in the future where people would Without doubt, the past 200 u'jrs
drive to their 60-storey office buildings in more than any other period in hi :
machines fuelled by the power of a have seen monumental change.
hundred horses? And it seems certain to be the сам for
Or travel halfway around the world in the next 200.
half a day in metal tubes flying 10,000 Which is why its important for IBM
metres above the ground? to be part of such major public events as
Or use machines that complete many World Expo *88.

F ig u r e 8.3 A n n e x in g n a tio n a l tim e to the m u ltin a tio n a l c o r p o ra tio n

S o u rc e : Used with kind perm iss io n from IB M Aus tralia Ltd.

220
 THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME
We have provided IBM System 38
equipment to help run the event, but
more importantly, we’re major exhibitor*..
The IBM pavilion, with its two large
futuristic theatres and an interactive com­
puter park, will be an attraction where
visitors won’t sitnplv be entertained.
Certainly those who visit the pavilion
will feel they are much more familiar with
22 1
computers. Chances are, they'll also be
interested in, and stimulated by, die pos­
sibilities they offer.
And since computers arc bound to
play an even greater role in the work and
leisure activities of our children than they
already do in our lives, the IBM pavilion
w ill provide the next generation with an
ideal opportunity to stay ahead.
 TECH N O LO G IES O F'PRO G RESS

The most excitement this side o f World Expo 88

'<■ .1
И

Figure 8.4 Advertisement for the Queensland Cultural Centre

and am usem ents . . . destined to be E x p o ’s only physical le g a c y ’ and sited

directly by the Cultural Centre.
That a fun-fair w as planned as an integral part o f Expo ’ 88 seem s to have
occasion ed neither surprise nor objection. Nor, furthermore, w as there any
protest at the proposal that the fair should be left behind, nestling cheek by
jo w l with the m useum and art gallery. Yet it is certain that, a century or so
ago, such a proposal w ould have been unthinkable. M useum s, art galleries
and exp osition s then stood on one side o f a cultural divide and fairs, together
with other places o f popular assem bly, on another, and any proposal to adjoin
them w ould have provoked outrage. Indeed, m useum s and the like were
exp licitly con ceived and planned as cultural zon es distinct from the world of
the fair, the tavern, m usic-hall or popular theatre. 17 D avid Goodm an has thus
tellin gly argued the respects in w hich the m id-nineteenth-century foundation
and early developm ent o f the N ational M useum o f V ictoria was shaped by a
dual-edged ‘fear o f circu ses’: that is, by the desire to construct a cu ltu ral
space in w hich a rational ordering o f nature w ould be distinct from the
collectio n s o f cu riosities, o f popular zoos, m enageries, circuses and com­
m ercial pleasure gardens, w h ile also one in w hich civ iliz ed and d e c o r o u s
form s o f behaviour could be distinguished from the raucousness associated
with places o f popular assem bly (G oodm an 1990).

222
 THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME

It i s , in this light, important to note that, at E xpo ’88, it was not m erely the
^ 0rld o f the fair that was brought into a harm onious relation to that o f the
e x p o s i t i o n and m useum . V irtually all the other form s o f popular enter-
tainment and assem bly which, in the m id-nineteenth century, w ould have
tood o n the other side o f the cultural divide - the circus, remnants o f freak
shows (the tallest man in the w orld), parades and carnivals, street theatre,
tav e r n s - were en folded into the Expo, parts o f its official programme.
It is not p ossib le, here, to account in detail for the processes through w hich
the terms o f this cultural divide have been, if not undone, then certainly
loosened. 18 A s far as the fair is concerned, however, tw o developm ents stand
to the fore; and both were incubated in the M idw ay zones o f late nineteenth-
c e n tu r y American exp osition s. The first con sists in the m odernization o f the
c u ltu re and ethos o f the fair effected by the increasing m echanization o f its
entertainments and the associated tendency for those entertainm ents to be
represented as both the realizations and projections o f progress’s triumphal
advance. In the opening decades o f the nineteenth century, popular fairs -
still dedicated to the display o f human and animal cu riosities and still strongly
associated with carnivalesque inversions o f established cultural values and
hierarchies - constituted a moral and cultural universe that w as radically
distinct from the em erging rationalist and im proving culture o f the m iddle
classes. The fairs w hich - unofficially and uninvited - sprang up in a sso ci­
ation with the early exp osition s, often occup yin g adjacent locations, thus
gave rise to a dissonant clash o f opposing cultures w hich seriou sly d is­
concerted exposition authorities to the degree that they prom ised to undermine
the pedagogic benefits o f the expositionary rhetorics o f progress. 19
Even when, follo w in g the initiative o f Paris in 1867, fairs cam e to be
thought o f as planned adjuncts o f exp osition s, this sense o f tw o separate
w orlds remained strong. Indeed, to som e degree, it becam e institutionalized,
the integrity o f the exp osition ’s im proving rhetorics being protected from
co n ta m in a tio n by the world o f the fair via the construction o f the latter as
e x p lic itly a frivolous diversion from the instructional and uplifting qualities
of the exposition zon e proper (see Greenhalgh 1989). Thus, even into the
twentieth century, m any o f the aspects o f the early-nineteenth-century fair
survived in the M idw ays o f A m erican exp o sitio n s. A t San F ran cisco’s
P a n a m a -P a cific E xposition o f 1915 w e thus find Harry La Brecque, a fam ous
fairground barker, hailing the passing public to visit ‘the greatest show on
•he M idw ay’ containing ‘the long and the short, the fat and the lean, the
largest, m ost unbelievable collection o f freaks ever assem bled on this earth’,
featuring ‘Sombah, the W ild Girl, captured in deepest A frica, and H oobooh,
er savage brother’ (cited in M cC ullough 1966: 76). Sim ilarly, the M idway
^ ew York in 1939 featured an Odditorium and, in Little M iracle Town, a
sp lay o f m idgets w hile also, in the contrived underwater striptease o f Oscar
e Amorous O ctopus, retaining the association o f fairs w ith the illicit
asures (burlesque, prostitution) o f a phallocentric sexual order.20

223
 TECH NOLOGIES OF PROGRESS

N one the less, the m echanization o f fair entertainm ents did enable th
id eological them atics o f exp osition s and their accom panying fairs to Ьесощ
more clo sely harm onized in allow in g the latter to be enfolded within ^
project and d iscou rse o f m odernity. If, in exp osition m achinery hall
progress was m aterially realized in d isplays o f tech n ologies o f production
the new m echanical rides w hich began to be featured in the M idw ays fro
the 1890s provided a fitting com plem ent in m aterially instantiating progres
in the form o f techn ologies o f pleasure. The con sequ en ces o f these develop
m ents were not, o f course, lim ited to ex p o sitio n fairs. In functioning as the
forcing ground for new ride innovations (the Ferris W heel at C hicago, 1893-
the A erio C ycle at B u ffalo, 1901) - and often ones with futuristic references
(the Trip to the M oon, also B u ffa lo ) - w hich then becam e permanent
attractions at the new fixed-site am usem ent parks w hich developed over the
sam e period, A m erican M idw ays played a significant role in transforming the
culture o f the fair throughout the E n glish-speaking w orld. The relations
betw een the M idw ays and the rush o f am usem ent park developm ent at Coney
Island in the 1890s are o f particular sign ifican ce in this regard.21 In their
provision o f a series o f techn ological w onders w hich allow ed their visitors
to participate vicariou sly in progress, and in their com m itm ent to a resolute
m odernization o f the ethos o f the fair, they provided an exam ple that was
rapidly im itated - and often on licencg - elsew h ere.22
Once again, this did not result in a total transform ation o f the fair. All the
C oney Island fun parks, for exam ple, retained the sym bolism o f carnival,
som etim es sign ifyin g their separation from the ‘real w orld ’ via the rites of
passage they ^inflicted on the visitor: visitors to the S teep lechase Park entering
from the ocean sid e, for exam ple, had to pass through a rotating Barrel of
Fun. N one the le ss, the fact rem ains that, rite o f passage com p lete, the fairgoer
entered into a w orld w h ose id eo lo g ica l horizons had been substantially
harm onized with the rhetorics o f m odernity. In this respect, the World Expo
Park m erely inherited the legacy w hich the nineteenth-century expositional
adjustment o f the popular fair bequeathed to the tw entieth-century amuse­
m ent park. M on olith ically futuristic in its resonances (its nam ing system was
uniform ly SCIFI - see Figure 8.1) and esch ew in g entirely any allusions to the
w orld o f carnival, the sym bolic references o f the Park were entirely at one
with those o f the Expo itself. A s m erely another realization o f the theme of
leisure in the age o f technology, the fair, here, functioned as directly a part
o f the E xp o’s rhetoric. To a degree perhaps unprecedented, Expo and fait
thus m erged into one another, a world at one with itself, perfectly seamless
in its lack o f sym bolic rifts or tensions.
Yet, as far as its planned adjacency to the Cultural Centre is concerned, 11
is the second aspect o f the fair’s nineteenth-century transformation that is
perhaps more important. The legacy o f the change I have in mind here is most
evident in the con ception o f the World E xpo Park as, precisely, a park-
A ccording to Ken Lord, its m anaging director, ‘World Expo Park is a park

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 THE S H A P I N G OF T H IN G S TO C O M E

in the true sense o f the word. It’s a place for fa m ilies’ (A u stra lia n P o st, 18
in 1
д р Г}1 1988: 17). The field o f association s established here (fair, fam ily,
ar]c) is, again, one made p ossib le only by that brought into being via the
d e v e l o p m e n t o f turn-of-the-century am usem ent parks and their conception as

laces for relaxing and strolling, for taking o n e ’s pleasures sedately. O f

c o u r s e , the actual form s o f public behaviour exhibited at am usem ent parks
^ ау not alw ays have lived up to this expectation. However, this does not
ainsay the point that am usem ent parks were shaped into being as heirs to
work o f such civilizin g agen cies as public parks and m useum s - agen cies
which had, in part, been con ceived as cultural instruments for transforming
t h e p u b l i c manners o f the popular classes.

For it was not m erely the id eological incom patibility o f the fair and the
m useu m which made these seem unlikely b ed fellow s in the early to m id­
n in e te e n th century. The fair, as the very em blem for the rude, rough and
raucous manners o f the populace, sym bolized precisely those attributes o f
p laces o f popular assem bly to which the m useum was con ceived as an antidote.
If fairs on the one hand, and m useum s and expositions on the other, were not
to be m ixed this was partly because they sym bolized different form s o f public
b eh aviou r - and different publics - w hich, in the view o f many, were not to
be mixed either. A s one visitor to the Great Exhibition com m ented:

Vulgar, ignorant, country people: many dirty w om en with their infants

were sitting on the seats g ivin g suck with their breasts uncovered,
beneath the lo v e ly fem ale figures o f the sculptor. Oh! H ow I w ish I had
the power to petrify the livin g, and anim ate the marble: perhaps a tim e
will com e w hen this fantasy w ill be realised and the human breed be
succeeded by finer form s and lovelier features, than the world now
dreams of.
(Cited in Greenhalgh 1988: 31)

In reforming and progressive opinion, by contrast, m useum s and parks were

regarded as precisely the instrum ents through which the populace w ould be
weaned from boisterous pursuits and habits and tutored into new form s o f
eivility. Frederick Law O lm stead, the architect o f N ew Y ork’s Central Park,
thus view ed parks as exerting ‘an influence favourable to courtesy, self-
control and tem perance’ and so as ‘a gen tle but e ffe c tiv e school for
citizenship’ (cited in Kasson 1978: 15). T h ese terms were very sim ilar to
those which Sir Henry C ole had used a cou p le o f d ecad es earlier w hen
commenting on the civ ilizin g virtues o f m useum s in v iew o f their capacity
to instil respect for property and encourage the adoption o f m ore gentle form s
° f public behaviour.23 In providing for the com m ingling o f cla sses, thus
allowing the working classes to adopt new public manners by imitating those
°f m iddle-class exem plars, and for the m ixing o f both sex es and all ages, thus
a'iowing the presence o f w om en and children to exert a c iv iliz in g influence
° n male behaviour, these new kinds o f public spaces also provided a context

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 TECH N O LO G IES OF PROGRESS

in w hich visitors could practise the new form s o f public bearing and c iv ile
required by new form s o f urban life in w hich encounters with strangers were
a daily exp erience.24
E xp osition s, o f course, were regarded in a sim ilar light: as sch ools for the
d iffu sion o f civ iliz ed cod es o f public behaviour. For Olm stead, who designed
C h ica g o ’s W hite City, the purpose o f the 1893 exp osition was to offer an
ideal version o f an urban order, a space which could function sim ultaneously
as a sum m ons to c iv ic resp onsibilities and as a m eans for practising them
N or w as this w ithout con sequ en ce for the adjoining M idw ays or the fixed-site
am usem ent parks those M idw ays subsequently spawned. For over the same
period that these were id eo lo g ica lly renovated via the m odernization o f their
pleasures their architectural organization w as transformed. Fairs had previ­
ou sly been temporary structures, accom m odating them selves to the existing
spaces o f street or com m on, typically erected in an unplanned fashion with
the entertainm ents jostlin g one another for space, thus cram m ing the crowd
in on itself. By the 18 90s, by contrast, am usem ent parks - w hether temporary,
lik e those w hich accom panied exp ositio n s, or perm anent, lik e those at Coney
Island - were laid out like cities, with vast prom enades, inspection towers,
and courts providing for rest and tranquillity; regulated spaces lim iting the
p ossib ilities, and inclination, for row diness. B y the turn o f the century, the
fair, on ce the very sym bol o f disorder, could be invoked, regularly and
repeatedly, as a scen e o f regulation, o f a crowd rendered orderly, decent and
seem ly in its con d uct.25 ‘It is ’, as one observer put it o f C oney Island’s Luna
Park, ‘the ordinary A m erican crow d, the best natured, best dressed, best
behaving and best sm elling crowd in the w orld ’ (cited in K asson 1978: 95).
B y the tim e o f E xpo ’88, o f course, the crowd had long been tutored into
such new form s o f public dem eanour and civility. Indeed, this became a
source and sight o f pleasure in itse lf in the form o f the Expo queue whose
orderly and good-natured conduct becam e one o f the m ost talked-about
asp ects o f the E xpo. Yet, even though m any feign ed surprise at this
m anifestation o f public civility, there was nothing new in this. From their
begin nings, exp osition s - often planned in face o f the fear o f public disorder
- have functioned as spaces in w hich a n ew ly fashioned public (one not
form ally differentiated by rank) has dem onstrated to itse lf its capacity for
orderly and regulated conduct. The pleasures o f such a prospect have become
a regular trope o f exp osition com m entary w h ile, in their design and layout,
exp osition s have typ ically afforded their visitors vantage points from w h i c h
the behaviour o f other visitors m ight be observed and rendered a s i g h t of
pleasure - as from the m onorail encircling the site at E xpo ’88. In these
resp ects, ex p osition s have offered not m erely tech n o lo g ies whereby the
visitor m ight engage in a m odernization o f the self; they have also functioned
as civ iliz in g tech n ologies p recisely to the degree that, in including their
p ub lics am ong their exh ib its, they have provided a con text in w h i c h a
citizen ry m ight display to itself, in the form o f a pleasurable practice, those

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 THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME

c0des o f public civ ility to which it has becom e habituated.

Indeed, in the case o f Expo ’88, where only a fraction o f the v isito r’s
time was spent in the display p avilion s, there are grounds for arguing that
jjtis was the central pleasure o f the Expo experience. T hose w ho went again
and again did so less for the sake o f seein g the exh ib itions than for that o f
r o a m i n g , rehearsing the codes o f urban life in an im aginary city com plete
w ith its streets and boulevards, its side-w alk cafes and roving entertainers,
c a b a r e t s and queues - all there so lely for the express purpose o f relaxed
s t r o l l i n g , for seein g and looking, everyone a fla n e u r, but a fla n e u r on the m ove

and, a s sim ultaneously subject and object o f vision , constantly open to the
c a s u a l glance o f other strollers.

Y et this was an aspect o f E xpo that had been prepared for just as it was
i t s e l f a preparation. ‘B risb ane’, predicted Sir Lew Edwards, chairm an o f the

Expo Authority, ‘w ill never be the sam e after Expo - sh opp in g hours,
ou td o o r eating, the greening o f the city, our attitudes to h ospitality . . . all
th ese things w ill perm anently transform our c ity ’ (W o m a n ’s W eekly, May
1988: 54). For Edwards, Expo w as to serve as an instrum ent in the
cosm opolitanization o f Brisbane, and o f its populace; a cosm op olitanization,
h o w ev er, in w hich the citizen w as addressed as a consum er, and one w ho
n eed ed to be m odernized. A lec M cH oul, w ho didn’t go to E xpo, none the
less understood this aspect o f its functioning very w ell in contrasting its
add ress to that o f the Brisbane Show:

It is m anifestly trying so hard N O T to be like The Show that, again, the

com parisons have to be made. They put each other on the agenda. Expo
is where you C A N ’T see sheep and cattle, produce and com m odities as
you m ove from ride to ride. It’s where you C A N ’T get a show bag. It’s
where the food is authentic and international and not cheap and nasty.
It’s where the beer is im ported from Stow -on-the-W old and sold in
authentic pint m ugs. Expo is alternative consum ption: o f com m odities
and im ages.
(M cH oul 1989: 219)

However, the sym bolic geography o f Expo consum ption is on ly h alf under­
stood if view ed ex c lu siv e ly in terms o f its self-distantiation from the im ages
and style o f consum ption associated with the traditional country fair. For if
the Expo experience w as an alternative to this style o f consum ption, it w as
also a preparation for another - and, indeed, one which was already present,
just across the river, in the new M yer Centre, the face o f the new in the form
° f a shopping developm ent, com p lete with its ow n am usem ent park, where
a11 ° f the vid eo and com puter display techniques and tech n o lo g ies evident at
Expo were harnessed to a new style o f consum ption. Like the Cultural Centre,
the Myer Centre had opened before the Expo and stood in need o f only one
tHing; a public sufficiently m odernized and tutored in the techniques o f hi-
tech shopping to use it. In this respect, the leisurely stroll o f the w ould-be

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 T E C H N O L O G I E S OE P R O G R E S S

Expo fla n e u r w as deceptive, con cealin g the anxious work o f one bent to the
task o f practising new shopping m ores, rehearsing new consum ption codes
in a custom -built environm ent.
I suggested earlier that Expo ’88’s major sym bolic bequests to its host city
had preceded it in the range o f cultural - and, w e can now add, com m ercial -
facilities w hich opened their doors before the Expo com m enced. Yet this is
perhaps, to distract attention from the more practical, more technological
contribution it made - or sought to make - to the m odernizing task in the
kind o f re-tooling o f the c ity ’s inhabitants it proposed in order to allow them
to play their roles w ithin the futures that had been arranged for them.
C om bining the evolutive tim e o f d iscipline with the evolutionary time of
progress and articulating both to the tim e o f the city, Expo projected the
future in the form o f a task - a new style and level o f consum ption - for which,
in stylin g the consum er in the fashion o f a new cosm op olitanism , its
sim ulation o f civ ic life provided a training.

228
г
A T H O U S A N D AND ONE
TROUBLES
Blackpool Pleasure Beach

BLACK PO OL PLE A SU R E BEACH

E urope’s greatest am usem ent park
Hom e o f the largest collectio n o f
‘W hite K n uckle’ R ides in Europe

Everything here is bigger and better: the S p a ce T ow er not only takes

you to the top o f its 160 feet, but does the view in g for you as it spirals
around its slender colum n. The G ra n d N a tio n a l is the only double track
coaster ride in Europe, w hilst the S te e p le c h a se is unique in having three
tracks for racing. W here else can you hurtle through 3 6 0 ° and v iew
B lackpool P le a su re B ea ch upside down - only here on the R ev o lu tio n -
a thrill filled sooperdooperlooper. Or experience the sensations o f an
astronaut in the u pside-dow ness o f the S ta rsh ip E n te rp rise . . . Or hurtle
round the figure o f eigh t track on our T oka yd o E x p re ss . . . Or
experience the unusual sensations o f riding the T id a l W ave and racing
on our own G ra n d P rix . . . all w ithin a few hundred yards?

Such claim s, taken from a 1981 publicity leaflet, are typical o f the way
B la ck p o o l Pleasure Beach represents itself, and has alw ays represented itse lf
- as offering the biggest, the best, the only one o f its kind, the unique, the
latest, the m ost up-to-the-m inute range o f thrills, sp ills and popular enter­
tainm ent. It is alw ays one step ahead, alw ays changing - ‘The P le a su re B ea c h
is never static’ - constantly ‘in search o f new rides w hich w ill appeal to the
B la ck p o o l p u b lic’, unrivalled even its claim s to be unrivalled (Palmer 1981).
A lth ou gh in its name pleasure struts forth in an unusually brazen way, the
P leasure Beach is neatly decked out in the cloth es o f m odernity. Not only in
Publicity handouts, but in the nam es, them es, d esign and layout o f the
P rincipal rides and in its architecture, pleasure at the Pleasure B each is
n g o r o u s ly constructed under the signs o f m odernity, progress, the future,
A m e r i c a . Its face is the bold face o f the new. Operating on the threshold
e tw e en the present and the future, the Pleasure B each harnesses for our
Pleasure the tech n ologies d eveloped at the outer lim its o f progress ('Bright
c°lours and geom etric shapes reflect the use o f glass fibre and therm oplastics

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 TECHNOLOGIES ORPR O G RESS

in construction’); it anticipates the future in m aking advanced t e c h n o lo g y

a part o f the here and now (its operating m onorail is ‘the first o f its kind in
E urope’). The past, with qualified excep tions, is as dead as a dodo. In this
chapter I want to consider the different types o f pleasure that are available
at the Pleasure B each, the w ays they are organized and the sign s under which
they are coded for consum ption. Taken together, these constitute a distinct
‘regim e o f pleasu re’ which occup ies a special place in relation to the rest
o f Blackpool.

M O D ER N ITY AND RESPECTA BILITY

A lthough a p a r t o f B lackpool in the sense that it is central to the town’s

com m ercial w ell-b ein g and, in turn, dependent on it - an independent source
o f attraction w hich brings b usiness to the rest o f B lackpool as w ell as feeding
o f f the b usiness w hich the rest o f B lack pool provides - the Pleasure Beach
is also a p a rt fr o m B lackpool, a recognizably distinct sub-system in the overall
organization o f pleasure w hich the tow n o ffers. In the first place, it is
geographically separate. Located on the southern edge o f the town, it is
separated from the tow n centre leisure pleasure com p lexes - the Tower, the
G olden M ile and the Central Pier - by a ‘pleasure-barren’ h alf to three-
quarters o f a m ile o f hotels and boarding h ouses. Just south o f the Pleasure
B each, B lackpool - not B lackpool as a m unicipal entity but B lackpool as ‘fun
c ity ’ - stops abruptly, as an arch over the road bids the visitor goodbye. This
geographical isolation is reinforced by a circular w all w hich en closes the
Pleasure B each, segregating it from the terraced houses at its rear and from
the prom enade at its front. N or does this w all just mark a p hysical separation.
It also constitutes a sym bolic boundary, operating definite inclusions and
exclu sion s w hich, to a degree, mark o f f the form s o f pleasure available within
it from those available outside it in the rest o f B lackpool.
M ost ob viou sly, m any o f the ‘e x c e s s e s ’ w hich characterize form s of
consum ption in the rest o f B lack pool - giant foam -rubber stetsons, carnival­
like m asks, w illy-w arm ers - are not available in the Pleasure Beach. This
d ifferen ce is accentuated by the display o f these item s in a short row o f shops
and stalls just outside the Pleasure Beach. More generally, pleasure wears a
m ore uniform face in the Pleasure B each than it does in the rest o f Blackpool.
In an im pressionistic survey o f B lack pool written in the 1930s, Tom Harrison,
founder o f the M ass O bservation m ovem ent, com m ented on the incredibly
diverse form s o f pleasure com peting with each other along the promenade -
traditional fortune tellers, quack m ed icin es, appeals to the Orient and to
m ysticism , freaks and m onstrosities, conjuring tricks and unbelievable spec­
tacles jostlin g for space with the jok e shops and am usem ent arcades (Harrison
1938). Som ething o f this d iversity rem ains in the centre o f Blackpool-
although even here the face o f pleasure has been considerably sm oothed and
stream lined - there are far few er independent sid e-sh ow s than there used to

230
 A THOUSAND AND ONE TROUBLES

be even in the 1960s. The on ce m essy and variegated sprawl o f the G olden
j^jle, with its m ass o f rival stalls and sid e-sh ow s, has been converted into a
large ’ integrated indoor entertainm ents com p lex run by EMI.
In the Pleasure Beach, by contrast, pleasure is resolu tely m odern. Its
distinctive ‘h a il’ to pleasure-seekers is constructed around the large m echan­
ical rides, unavailable elsew here in B lackpool and packaged for consum ption
aS a m anifestation o f progress harnessed for pleasure. There are am usem ent
arcades, bingo halls, rifle ranges and so on - but no freak show s, no quack
medicine, no m ysticism and only one fortune teller. Even those form s o f
entertainment that are w id ely available at other am usem ent parks and
travelling fairs are here reconstructed under the sign o f m odernity. The
dodgems were b illed as ‘The first in Europe direct from A m erica ’ when they
were first introduced around 1909. N ow , according to The P le a su re B ea ch
Story, ‘the old D odgem tubs o f pre-war days have been transformed into Auto
Skooters, which are built here at B lack pool Pleasure B each , centre o f the
British Fun Industry’. T hey are in fact in distingu ish able from dodgem s
elsewhere but, as a once up-to-the-m inute ride which has b ecom e traditional,
they have been retrieved as super-modern.
Pleasure has not alw ays been so unam biguously cod ed at the Pleasure
Beach. Nor have its relations to the rest o f B lack pool alw ays been the sam e.
The Pleasure Beach occupies what used to be, in the m id-nineteenth century,
a gypsy encam pm ent (see Figure 9.1) where, in the summer, both the resident
families and itinerant entertainers offered a variety o f traditional enter­
tainments - astrology, fortune-telling, palm istry, phrenology and so on (see
Turner and Palm er 1981). M echanical rides w ere first d eveloped on this South
Shore site (origin ally just a vast area o f sand stretching back from and
continuous with the beach) in the late 1880s - a period w hich w itnessed
similar developm ents in other parts o f the tow n, esp ecia lly in the town centre
at Raikes H all, an open-air pleasure centre m odelled on M anchester’s B e lle
Vue Gardens. The South Shore site, at this tim e, w as m erely a jum ble o f
independently ow ned and operated m echanical rides ex istin g cheek by jo w l
with the gyp sy am usem ents. The origins o f the Pleasure B each can be traced
to 1895 when tw o local entrepreneurs, John W. Outhwaite, w ho operated the
Switchback R ailw ay on the South Shore, and W illiam G eorge Bean, a o n e­
time am usem ent park en gin eer in A m erica w ho operated the H otchkiss
bicycle R ailw ay on the South Shore, bought the forty acres o f sand on which
the m echanical rides and the gyp sy encam pm ent were located. Prompted by
hte closure o f R aikes Hall, w hich reduced the com petition for m echanically
tnduced sp ills and thrills from the town centre, their aim w as to develop the
S°uth Shore site as an integrated open-air pleasure com p lex on the m odel o f
American am usem ent parks.
T h ere were tw o ob stacles to be surm ounted: the op position o f rival
Usm e ss interests, particularly those w hich had invested in the new pleasure
c ° n ip le x e s like the Tower and the W inter Gardens in the tow n centre, and the

231
 T E C H N O L O G I E S OF P R O G R E S S

continued presence o f gypsy hom es and entertainm ents on the site. Both were
overcom e by the election o f Bean to the town cou n cil in 1907. This en a b le d
the interests o f the Pleasure Beach to be represented in the local p o litic a l
m achinery alongside those o f their rivals. Nor w as it any coin cid en ce that in
the sam e year, a set o f new Fairground R egulations was announced w h ich
forbade gam bling, clairvoyan ce and quack m edicine on all fairground sites
in B lack p ool and declared that no ‘g y p sy ’s shed, tent, caravan or e n ­
cam pm ent shall be perm itted on any part o f the land set apart as a Fair
Ground’. This enabled the eviction o f itinerant g yp sies from the P leasu re
B each in the fo llo w in g year. (The site had been christened The P lea su re
Beach in 1906, the com pany o f The B lack pool Pleasure B each Ltd b ein g
form ed in 1909.) B y 1910, the last o f the perm anent gypsy fam ilies h ad left.

Figure 9.1 The nineteenth-century gypsy encampment, Blackpool

This cam paign against the g yp sies was con sistent with the general d rive,
m anifest throughout B la ck p o o l’s history, to g iv e pleasure an air o f bourgeois
respectability - a drive that has alw ays been, to a degree, thwarted as a result
o f the tow n ’s peculiar structure o f land tenure. A s John W alton and Harold
Perkin have both noted, land ow nership in B lackpool was extrem ely frag­
m ented by the b eginning o f the nineteenth century, largely because th e sale
o f the Layton estate, ow ned by the C lifton fam ily, allow ed the centre o f the
tow n to be split into sm all parcels (Perkin 1975/6; W alton 1975). This
contrasted sharply with resorts lik e Southport, where the dom inance o f large
landholders allow ed an integrated and planned developm ent to cater fo r the

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 A THOUSAND AND ONE TROUBLES

respectable and w ell-to -d o day-trippers and holidaym akers. The m orsell-

iz a t io n o f land tenure in B lackpool inhibited attempts to d evelop Blackpool
along sim ilar lin es as it enabled the more com m ercially oriented entre-
reneurs, with an ey e to the w ork in g-class trade o f the industrial towns o f
Lancashire and Yorkshire, to cater for the tastes o f the ‘non-respectable’ in
spite o f the opposition o f local m agnates.
This is not to su ggest that the history o f B lack pool can be construed as one
0f unbridled com m ercialism riding rough-shod over opposing principles. To
the contrary, it w as not really until the 1880s that the w orking-class market
b ecam e significant enough - both in size and in spending pow er - to prevail
over the requirem ents o f the m id d le-class visitors w ho had previously
p ro v id ed the tow n ’s mainstay. E legan ce, respectability and cultivation -
these were the w atchw ords o f B la ck p o o l’s early history, and the town quite
deliberately sought to maintain a lofty air w hich w ould exclu de h o i p o llo i.
H ow ever, such attempts were con sistently undercut by the ease with which
entrepreneurs could buy tow n-centre sites and evade corporation regulations.
The first pier, tod ay’s North Pier, opened in M ay 1863, aim ing above all at
dignity. It was an elegant w alkw ay over the sea, utterly lacking in com m ercial
em bellishm ent - but in 1868 it w as forced to provide various form s o f
d iv ersio n as its revenues declined after the rival South Jetty opened. Today’s
Central Pier, this w as known at the tim e as ‘The P eo p le’s P ier’; it offered
dancing from dawn to dusk, seven days a w eek. Sim ilarly, in the theatre, it
took a su ccession o f financial failures before the tow n ’s im presarios accom ­
m o dated them selves to popular taste - a shift n icely encapsulated in the
contrast betw een the founding am bition o f the W inter G ardens’ shareholders
to provide ‘high class entertainm ent w hich no lady or gentlem an w ould object
to s e e ’ to the m axim o f B illy H olland, appointed manager o f the W inter
G ardens in 1881: ‘G ive ’em what they want.’ The origins o f The G olden M ile
perhaps indicate m ost clearly the contradictory forces at play in B la ck p o o l’s
development. A s an unregulated zon e, the beach had alw ays been a trading
area for itinerant hawkers, phrenologists, show m en and the lik e - much to
the consternation o f the local tradesm en w ho regarded these ‘sandrats’ as
unfair com petition driving away the tow n ’s ‘resp ectab le’ business. R espond-
ln8 to this pressure, the Corporation prohibited trading on the beach in 1897,
but this in turn provoked such a public outcry that the Corporation relented.
Ventriloquists, N iggers, Punch and Judy, C am els, Ice Cream, G inger Beer,
B lack p o o l R ock, S w eets in B askets and O yster S elle rs’ could remain on the
beach, but not ‘phrenologists, “ Q u ack ” D octors, Palm ists, M ock A uctions
and Cheap Jacks’. The result w as that the prohibited traders m erely set up
shop in the forecourts o f the houses fronting onto the prom enade - the origins
°f the Golden M ile, an id eological scandal, an affront to the tow n ’s carefully
c°nstructed im age o f m odernity and respectability.
At the Pleasure B each, a sin gle site under sin gle ow nership, it w as possib le
in s t r u c t a more clo sely integrated regim e o f pleasure. Early photographs

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 T E C H N O LO G IE S OF PROGRESS

(see Figure 9.2) con vey the im pression o f a quite different organization 0f
pleasure from that which obtains today. The Pleasure Beach and the beach
were virtually indistinguishable, with no p hysical boundaries separating the
two. The rides and side-stalls were sim ply placed on the sand and som e rival
entertainm ents w ere installed on the beach itself. Pleasure-seekers moved
uninterruptedly from the one to the other. They form ed overlapping and
m erging (rather than separate and distinct) pleasure zones. The layout o f rides
was fairly haphazard, as gyp sy stalls and sid e-sh ow s jostled for space with
the big rides. The signs o f pleasure were m ultiple and contradictory: the
pleasure-seeker could m ove from the futuristic vertigo o f the Scenic Railway
to the pseudo-past o f a m ock-Tudor v illa g e street in a few paces. During the
pre- and im m ediately post-war years, the Pleasure Beach w as not so much
transformed as added to, m ainly in the form o f rides imported ‘direct from
A m erica’: the H ouse o f N onsense, containing ‘over 60 o f the latest American
A m usem ent D e v ic e s’; the G ee W hiz, ‘The latest Invention and M ost Intriguing
R ide in B lack p ool’. Even the past was constructed under the sign o f science.
A ccording to a contem porary report on a reproduction o f the Battle o f Monitor
and Merrimac: ‘W ith the aid o f fine scientific appliances, history has been
m ade to liv e .’ This appeal to A m erica, to the future and to a super-modernity
w as not the on ly sign -en sem b le under w hich pleasure w as reconstructed
during this period. There was also and still is a latent dem ocracy o f pleasure.
The S ocial M ixer aim ed to m ake ‘E verybody Happy, Happy, Happy.’
‘E veryb ody’s D oing It’ proclaim ed the H ouse o f N onsense, and the local

Figure 9.2 The Pleasure Beach, Easter 1913

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 A THOUSAND AND ONE TROUBLES

per recom m ended the Joy W heel as a great social leveller: ‘N obody can
{,e pompous on the Joy W heel: w e prescribe it as a cure for the sw elled -h ea d .’
0 Ut the appeal to m odernity was becom ing the dominant form o f ‘barking’.
This was even more apparent in the 1920s and 1930s, w hen the Pleasure
Beach began to acquire the co llec tiv e form and identity that is still recogn iz­
able today. The extension o f the prom enade, which had hitherto stopped at
tbe northern entrance to the Pleasure Beach, finally separated Pleasure Beach
and beach into distinct zones. It w as also at this tim e that the Pleasure Beach
was w alled off. More important perhaps, esp ecia lly in the late 1930s, the
pleasure Beach hauled its architecture unequivocally into the age o f the new.
In the period around the Great War, m any o f the main architectural features
had been imperial in their references. The C asino, the main entrance to the
Beach and its architectural sh ow -p iece, w as constructed in 1913 in the style
o f an Indian palace and m any o f the individual rides echoed this in their
imitation o f various other outposts o f Empire. But now these recurring m otifs
o f the oriental, the ornate and the ex o tic were sw ept away. Leonard
Thompson, B ean’s son -in-law and m anaging director o f the Pleasure B each
at the time, com m ission ed Joseph Emberton, a leading m odernist architect,
to redesign the w hole Pleasure Beach in a sin gle style. The C asino becam e a
clean white building with sm ooth lines and no frills, totally functional in
appearance. The Fun H ouse, heir to the tim ber H ouse o f N on sen se, was
rebuilt in reinforced concrete to harm onize w ith the new C asino. The Grand
National, in the sam e style, replaced the S cen ic Railway. Even the archi­
tectural m inutiae w ere m odernized. The interior o f the R iver C aves was
restyled in cubist designs: so were the anim als on the N o a h ’s Ark, givin g
them an angular, futuristic appearance - a bizarre m odernization o f the past!
By the end o f the 1930s, the Pleasure Beach looked resolutely m odern. Its
architecture o f pleasure had taken on a stream lined, functional appearance.
And the sand had been covered by asphalt. ‘If you can see a foot o f asphalt
in August’, Leonard Thom pson said, ‘w e aren’t doing w ell.’ The situationists
° f 1 9 6 8 m ight have responded that, by the end o f the 1930s, the Pleasure
Beach had m anaged to bury ‘la p la g e so u s le s p a v e s ’.
Since the 1930s, the architectural m odernity o f the Pleasure B each has
been updated from tim e to tim e. In the 1950s Jack R ad cliffe, design er o f the
Festival o f Britain in 1951, w as com m ission ed to g iv e it a new look - largely
by superim posing an A m erican jazz and glitter on Em berton’s clean w hite
fa?ades. In the 1960s m ost o f the new rides w ere sty listica lly indebted to
■nnovations p ioneered in w orld fairs and exh ib ition s. T his w as m erely
follow ing a tim e-honoured pattern o f developm ent for B lack pool as a w hole
" the Tower w as m odelled on the E iffel Tower constructed for the Paris
Exhibition o f 1889; the giant Ferris W heel w hich dom inated the W inter
garden skyline from 1896 to 1928 w as based on the one d esign ed for the
r|ental E xhibition at Earls Court in 1895, in turn m odelled on the first
erris W heel exh ib ited at the C hicago W orld’s Fair in 1893. In like vein,

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the chair-lift (1 9 6 1 ) was inspired by one used at the World Fair in 1 9 5 8 th

dom e o f the A stro-Sw irl (19 6 9 ) was based on the design o f the A m erican
Pavilion at ‘Expo ’6 7 ’ in M ontreal, and the Space T o w er(1 9 7 5 ) was a stnalle
replica o f an exhibit in Lausanne in the early 1970s. Since then, the Pleasure
Beach has acquired a series o f rides derived from Am erican am usem ent
parks, many o f them still with futuristic references - the R evolution in 1979
and, in 1980, the Tokaydo Express and the Starship Enterprise.

THE PLEASURE BEACH AND BLACKPOOL

I have already noted that the Pleasure Beach is to som e degree separate from
B lack pool. U n lik e the tow n-centre pleasure co m p lex es - the Tower, the
G olden M ile, the piers - w hich hail the passer-by and rely on impulse
consum ption, the Pleasure B each is a place to be visited, perhaps just once
or tw ice in a holiday, for a special o ccasion . It offers som ething different.
Y et that ‘som ething d ifferen t’ is not in reality distinct from Blackpool.
Rather, it is a h eigh tening o f B la ck p o o l, a syn ecd och e o f the town’s
constructed im age.
From its earliest days as a seasid e resort the by-w ord o f Blackpool,
recurring again and again in its publicity brochures, has been Progress. This
has alw ays had a particular local, Lancashire articulation, a kind o f capping
o f Lancashire pride in the period when Lancashire claim ed to be the workshop
o f the world. If M anchester used to claim that what it thought today, London
did the next day and the world heard about the day after, then Blackpool’s
claim was to be even one step ahead o f M anchester. Nor w as the claim an idle
one. B lackpool has an im pressive number o f ‘firsts’ to its credit - the first
town in Britain with electric street lighting (1879) and the first town in the
world to have a permanent electric street tramway (1 8 8 5 ), for example.
Furthermore, its achievem ents were all the product o f northern capital and of
northern capitalists. V irtually all the investm ent which fuelled Blackpool’s
developm ent cam e from local entrepreneurs, from the town Corporation or
from the business com m unities in H alifax and Manchester. London capital did
not get a look in - at least not until the 1960s when m ost o f the tow n’s leisure-
pleasure com p lexes passed into the hands o f what is now Trust House Forte
(the three piers) and EMI (the Tower, the W inter Gardens, the Grand Theatre
and a part o f the G olden M ile). A shining testim ony to the power and v e r v e
o f northern capital, Blackpool offered the working people o f the in d u str ia l
north a place in the vanguard o f human developm ent in their leisure a n a l o g o u s
to that which the id eology o f progress constructed for them in their w o r k ­
places. The Pleasure B each ’s claim , quite sim ply, has been to have cappec*
the lot, to have done yesterday what the rest o f Blackpool is only thinking of
getting round to today - all this, and the product o f local capital too!
There is little doubt that this has been the exp licit aim o f the Pleasure B e ac h
m anagem ent. They seem alw ays to have regarded it as the spearhead °

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B lackpool, with distinctive interests not n ecessarily in line with those o f the
town as a w hole. In its early days, the Pleasure Beach com pany extracted
some very shrewd co n cession s from the tow n council. In agreeing to the
extension o f the prom enade beyond its northern entrance, for exam ple, it was
able to stipulate that no entertainm ent sites should be constructed beyond its
southern boundary for a period o f fifteen years. But if it is to a degree in
com petition with the rest o f the town the Pleasure Beach has differentiated
itself only by bein g B lack pool to the nth degree, more B lack pool than
Blackpool itself. Just as the town has its Tower, so there is a tow er at the
pleasure Beach too - not a rusty old iron thing that you go up and dow n in
an old-fashioned lift and have to w alk round when you reach the top, but an
aggressively up-to-date tower w hich, using the very latest technology, ‘does
the view ing for you as it spirals around its slender colum n ’. P rovocatively
placed at the very front o f the Pleasure B each, the Space Tower m akes
Blackpool Tower look quaint, the relic o f an outm oded technology. To travel
from the town centre to the Pleasure Beach is to travel through tim e - but
only to reach an exaggerated, updated version o f your point o f departure.
Blackpool's id eological centre is located not in the town centre but at the
South Shore, in the Pleasure Beach where there are no scandals to embarrass
its aspirations to progress and modernity. A s an execu tiv e o f the Pleasure
Beach told m e, ‘The Pleasure Beach is B lack p ool.’

A SITE OF P L E A S U R E S

‘The Pleasure B e a ch ’, according to Leonard T hom pson, ‘provides a co n ­

glom eration o f thrills, sp ectacles and a m yriad o f activity, so arranged
together for providing that operation know n as separating the public from
their m oney as p ain lessly and pleasantly as p o ssib le.’ In this, it is sp ec­
tacularly su ccessfu l, attracting over eight m illion visitors annually. It has
remained so con sisten tly profitable that the original com pany rem ains in
private hands and is still run as a fam ily concern by the grandson o f one o f
its co-founders. G iven the size o f the Pleasure Beach and the considerable
capital costs incurred in its developm ent - plus the fact that the com pany also
owns an am usem ent park at neighbouring M orecam be - it w ould seem that
the provision o f pleasure at B lack pool has paid handsom e dividends. W hereas
most am usem ent parks have only one or tw o roller-coaster-type rides, the
Pleasure Beach boasts four - along with som ething like seventy major rides
°r features. In addition, there are the usual sid e-stalls by the dozen, several
large am usem ent arcades, an ice-drom e and a huge indoor entertainm ents
complex incorporating several bars, a nightly floor show and restaurants.
What m ost im presses, however, is the sheer diversity o f the thrills, sp ills
and entertainm ents. Theoretically speaking, this is som ething o f a problem
as it w ould not be difficult, w ith a little im agination, to find confirm ation for
V|rtually any theory o f pleasure you cared to m ention. Is the never-endingly

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laughing clow n in front o f the Fun H ouse a testim ony to the bubbling-up 0f
K risteva’s sem iotic chora? And the hall o f mirrors - or ‘ 1001 T roubles’ as it
is called at the Pleasure Beach - brazenly advertises a m ultiple troubling and
cracking o f self-id en tity that m ight tempt the unwary Lacanian into an excess
o f instant theorization. For the m ost part, however, the Pleasure Beach
addresses - indeed assaults - the body, suspending the p hysical laws that
norm ally restrict its m ovem ent, breaking the so cia l cod es that normally
regulate its conduct, inverting the usual relations betw een the body and
m achinery and generally inscribing the body in relations different from those
in w hich it is caught and held in everyday life. However, it is equally
important to stress the self-referring structure o f the Pleasure Beach. A strong
sense o f ‘intertextuality’ prevails in the way that different rides allude to the
pleasures available on other rides - either by m im icry, inversion or by a
recom bination o f their elem ents. A s the pleasure-seeker m oves from ride to
ride, he or she is alw ays caught in a web o f references to other rides and,
ultim ately, to the Pleasure Beach as a w hole.
The major rides and features at the Pleasure Beach can be divided into five
som ew hat crude categories, although particular rides may overlap these. The
largest category con sists o f the big open-air ‘thrill rid es’ - the R oller Coaster,
the Grand N ational, the R evolution, the S teep lechase, the Log Flum es, the
B ig D ipper and so on (see Figure 9 .3 ). T hese are not only the main attractions
o f the Pleasure Beach. They also serve as the centre o f its system o f pleasure
- constantly alluded to by other rides, but not them selves referring outward
to these in a reciprocal fashion. The pleasures offered by these rides are
com p lex and diverse. In som e cases, the dominant appeal is that o f liberating
the body from norm al constraints to ex p o se it to otherw ise unattainable
sensations. The R evolution, the Starship Enterprise (rather like the Ferris
W heel, except that the rider is placed on the in sid e o f the w heel and travels
upside down) and the Astro Swirl (based on the centrifugal training equip­
m ent used by A m erican astronauts) all defy the law s o f gravity. In releasing
the body for pleasure rather than harnessing it for work, part o f their appeal
may be that they invert the normal relations betw een people and machinery
prevailing in an industrial context. M ore generally, the thrill rides give rise
to a pleasurable excitation by producing and playing on a tension between
danger and safety. The p sych ic en ergies invested in deliberately placing the
body at risk - only partly offset by assurances o f safety (faith in technology
put to the test) - are pleasurably released at the end o f the ride. The public
nature o f these rides adds to this pleasure o f tension and its release.
Thresholds are important here. To pay the price o f an entrance ticket is to
com m it o n eself - there’s no goin g back, excep t through taunts o f ‘ch ic k e n .
The p sych ic thrill o f physical danger is therefore intensified by the pleasures
o f bravado, by the public display o f conquering fear.
The pleasures afforded by the thrill-rides d iffer according to whether they
are addressed to sm all groups or larger co llectiv es. M ost o f the rides are for

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cou p les - tw o in a car. Others address groups o f four to five - The R eel, f0r
exam ple. R ides like the R oller Coaster are for couples w ithin larger groups
Tw o rides incorporate an elem ent o f com petition - the Grand N ational ( ‘the
on ly double track coaster ride in E urope’) and the S teeplechase. In the case
o f the Grand N ational, it is groups that are in com petition with one another
as distinct from the individual com p etitions available in the amusement
arcades. Like these, however, the com p etitive rides effect an equalization of
the com petitors with respect to the m achinery. The outcom e o f the race is
entirely fortuitous - it cannot be influenced by the participants - and, except
m om entarily, is inconsequential. F inally the Tidal W ave, a huge mechanical
sw in g, seating d ozens at a tim e, is for an undifferentiated m ass - the ‘body
o f the p eo p le’, the romantic m ight say, sw in gin g in unison. This appeal to
groups is a characteristic trait o f the Pleasure B each as a w hole, again
d istinguishing it from the piers and prom enades. N o place for the solitary,
and least o f all for the leisurely fla n e u r, its pleasures are pleasures only if
shared by a group or, as its m inim al ‘pleasure unit’, a couple. To go there
alone is to do som ething odd, a tactless rem inder o f singularity in a world
w hich, except for its am usem ent arcades, respects and addresses only plural
identities.
E n closed rides offer tw o m ain types o f pleasure. There are the pleasures
o f looking afforded by im aginary transport to other w orlds - the exotic, the
rem ote, the fantastic, the quaint. The G oldm ine, A lice in W onderland (a la
Walt D isn ey) and the R iver C aves, ‘a boat journey through exotic scenes
from every culture in the w o rld ’ are the clearest exam p les, esp ecially the
last in its claim to offer the public sights otherw ise unseeable. Geoffrey
Thom pson, currently m anaging director o f the Pleasure B each, capped these
claim s w hen he told the local paper, on the com p letion o f the construction
o f a replica o f the tem ples o f A ngkor Wat in Cambodia: ‘The tem ples are no
longer on view to the W estern World sin ce the Khmer R ouge took over
Cam bodia so you could say that w e are offerin g people the only chance they
w ill get to see th em ’ (B la c k p o o l E v e n in g G a zette, 21 March 1977). Other
rides function as abbreviated narratives, m im icking the tensions produced
by popular fictional form s. The G host Train is the clearest exam ple: a journey
through an en closed universe w here you encounter all the im aginary terrors
o f the G othic n ovel and horror film before com in g into the ligh t o f day again.
Here, as with the thrill-rides, thresholds are important - on ce in, there’s no
goin g back - but, as in the hall o f mirrors, it is the p sych e that is (flirtatiously)
exp osed to assault.
A number o f en closed w alk-through features like N o a h ’s Ark and the
Haunted H otel use m echanical contrivances to exp ose the body to unexpected
perils (m oving floors) and ritual insults (w ind up the skirts). The Fun H ouse
is esp ecially worthy o f m ention as it inverts the usual relations between the
body and m achinery at the Pleasure Beach. On m ost thrill-rides, the body lS
surrendered to the m achinery w hich liberates it from normal lim itations. 1°

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the Fun H ouse, the body com petes with the m achinery, tries to conquer it and
is forcibly rem inded o f its lim itations. M ost o f its activities in volve trying to
get the better o f various m echanical devices - w alking through a revolving
drum, attempting to stay at the centre o f a spinning w heel, craw ling to the
centre o f a centrifugal bowl or clim bing im possibly slippery slopes. The sense
0f crossing a threshold in the Fun H ouse is quite strong. B efore getting into
the main entertainm ent area, the body is subjected to a number o f ritual
assaults - you are buffeted by skittles, the floor shifts beneath your feet and
you have to cross a series o f revolving d iscs. T hese ob stacles also mark a
boundary betw een the Fun H ou se and the rest o f the Pleasure B each - a sign
of a reversal o f the relations betw een the body and m achinery, a warning that
in the Fun H ouse the body w ill be opposed by m achinery rather than assisted
or transported by it, and that the body m ust resist m achinery and struggle
against it rather than surrender itse lf to it.
A degree o f intertextuality also characterizes the new 180° indoor cinem a
shows like Journey into Space and Cinem a U S A . T hese allude to the thrill-
rides in tw o rather contradictory w ays. W hereas thrill-rides take the norm ally
stationary body and hurtle it through space, they hurtle the vision through
space whilst fixing the body as stationary. Yet the cinem a show s also com pete
with the thrill-rides by claim ing to outdate them , to reproduce all the thrills
and excitem ent o f the big rides by m eans o f a more advanced, sim pler and
safer technology. N estling beneath the Revolver, the C inem a U S A - w hich
includes a film o f the largest rollercoaster ride in Am erica - seem s to declare
the ‘sooperdooperlooper’ redundant, a m ass o f unnecessary m achinery. Rule
breaking is also evident in the placing o f fam iliar activities in new contexts.
This is esp ecially true o f various self-drive rides - the A uto-Skooters, Go-
Karts, Swam p B u ggies and Speedboats. Clearly, the A uto-Skooters, where
the aim is to hit other cars rather than to avoid them, invert the usual rules o f
driving. More generally, our normal exp ectation s o f transportation are
suspended as travel is presented as a self-su fficien t, fu n ction less pleasure,
rather than a m eans o f getting from A to B. Y ou can also travel by all p ossib le
means o f transportation. ‘Y ou can travel by land, sea or air w hen you com e
to Blackpool Pleasure Beach: by land on the Pleasure Beach Express, on water
by Tom S aw yer’s Rafts, and in the air along the on e-m ile M onorail or the
Cableway.’ This, however, is to speak o f the various through-site transporta­
tion system s - a m arkedly distinctive feature o f the Pleasure Beach. You can
travel through and around the Pleasure B each by a sm all-gauge railway,
through it and over it by the m onorail, over it by cable-cars; you can survey
11 as a w hole from the top o f the Space Tower. In these w ays the Pleasure
Feach offers itself as a site o f pleasures to the gaze o f the passing spectator.
Finally, the self-referential structure o f the system o f pleasure in operation
at the Pleasure B each is clearly evident in m iniaturized duplications o f m any
° f the major rides. The W ild M ouse is a m iniature o f rides like the roller­
coaster and, more generally, there are m iniaturizations o f the A uto-Skooters,

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Go-Karts and Speedboats - sm all, electronically controlled v eh icles which

confer on the user total control over the m achinery as distinct from sur­
rendering you rself to it, as on the thrill rides, or being opposed by it, as in
the Fun H ouse.

A WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN?

In view o f the degree to w hich the rules and constraints w hich norm ally hem
in the body are either inverted or suspended at the Pleasure B each, it might
be tem pting to draw parallels betw een the Pleasure Beach and the world of
carnival, to view it as ‘a w orld turned upside dow n ’. Tom Harrison com ­
m ented on a general and p ervasive con fusion o f categories in Blackpool,
directly rem iniscent o f the w orld o f carnival:

The m otif o f sea and land, east and w est are inextricably confused. On
the sand a great teapot serves refreshm ents, w hile the name Central
Beach refers only to the tangle o f pleasure show s on the prom, and
Pleasure Beach refers to Em berton’s shining w hite perm anent W embley
. . . . The rams are ships o f land. Over the inland pleasure zone o f
O lym pia tow ers a pseudo lighthouse.
(Harrison 1938: 393)

At the Pleasure B each, direct allu sion s to the world o f carnival are not hard
to find. The revolving figures at the front o f the Fun H ouse - various heads
w hich rotate so that a different face appears according to w hether they are
upside up or upside dow n, although it’s im possible to determ ine which o f
these is w hich - m ake clear reference to the ‘world turned upside down’
aspect o f carnival. Sim ilarly, a frequent m ixin g and con fusing o f categories
effects a carnival-like d issolu tion o f opposites - the m ost obvious juxta­
position is that betw een the laughing clow n , a King o f Mirth, in front o f the
Fun H ouse and the laughing death’s head (itse lf m erging and dissolving
opposites: life laughs at death, death m ocks life) w hich presides over the
G host Train roughly at the centre o f the park. There are num erous allusions
to the world o f the fantastic (the A lice R ide, the giant figure o f G ulliver that
supports the m onorail), to the tradition o f what the S oviet literary critic
M ikhail Bakhtin called ‘carnivalised literature’, an incorporation o f the
transgressive potentialities o f carnival into a subversive literary tradition
(Bakhtin 1973).
But although such connections are undeniable, it w ould be m isleading to
draw them too tightly or to take them at their face value in construing the
Pleasure B each as an anticipation o f a p eo p le’s utopia o f pleasure, as B a k h tin
co n ceiv ed o f carnival. Indeed, as Terry E agleton has noted, B a k h tin s
populist utopianism has its lim itations even in regard to carnival:

Carnival, after all, is a lic e n se d affair in every sense, a perm issible

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rupture o f hegem ony, a contained popular b lo w -o ff as disturbing and

relatively in effectu al as a revolutionary work o f art . . . . Carnival
laughter is incorporative as w ell as liberating, the lifting o f inhibitions
p olitically enervating as w ell as disruptive. Indeed from one view point
carnival may figure as a prim e exam ple o f that mutual com p licity o f
law and liberation, pow er and desire, that has b ecom e the dominant
theme o f contem porary post-M arxist pessim ism .
(Eagleton 1981: 148)

Even accepting these lim itations, a p op u list construction o f the Pleasure

Beach w ould reflect a serious m isunderstanding o f Bakhtin’s position. For
Bakhtin, the carnival o f the late m edieval period was not just a festival o f
transgression. It w as characterized by the inversion not just o f everyday rules
and behaviour, but o f the dom inant sym b olic order. A s his study o f Rabelais
makes clear, carnival was a festival o f d isc ro w n in g in w hich the axial
signifiers o f m edieval id eology were scandalously and often scatalogically
debased, tum bled down from heaven to earth, trampled over and su llied by
the heavily material feet o f the p eo p le’s practice - as w ell as being opposed
and overw helm ed by the ‘popular b e lly ’ o f carnival in its anticipatory
celebration o f a world o f material surfeit (see Bakhtin 1968). The Pleasure
Beach is sim ply not like that, not even rem otely. The body may be w hirled
upside down, hurled this w ay and that, but, in the coding o f these pleasures
for consum ption, the domiilant sym bolic order remains so lid ly intact and
unwaveringly the right w ay up. It has not alw ays been so. Tom Harrison
records that im itation bosses on ce figured prom inently at the Pleasure B each,
and there used to be a dum my p olicem an in a stationary car on the dodgem s,
but this was abandoned as the figure w as sm ashed up in no tim e at all - w hich
suggests m any p ossib ilities as to what a ‘p e o p le ’s fair’ m ight look like! And
outside the Pleasure Beach, debasem ents o f the dominant sym bolic order are
relatively easily purchased - in 1981, street-sellers were offerin g dartboards
printed over with a fu ll-face picture o f M argaret Thatcher.
Inside the Pleasure Beach, however, the brash them es o f m odernity and
progress dom inate all. This does not m ean they are the only them es in
operation. Subsidiary them es are in evid en ce on individual rides and at­
tractions - particularly the reference to other universes, to im aginary pasts
(the G aslight Bar, done out in Edwardian decor), to popular narrative
universes (the G oldm ine, D iam ond L il’s S aloon, the Starship Enterprise) and
to the exotic (the R iver C aves). In all such cases, however, it is an assim ilated
°therness that is on offer, an already recuperated and tamed fantastic - W alt
D isney’s A lice, a fu n c tio n a l G ulliver, and so on. (A lthough he may not have
been much fun to take to the Pleasure B each, Adorno w ould definitely have
been an instructive com panion!) What m ost needs to be stressed is the
ubimate subordination o f such divergent them es to the them e o f m odernity
arbculated at the level o f the Pleasure B e a c h ’s collectiv e hail to its visitors.

243
 T E C H N O LO G IE S OF PROGRESS a th o u s a n d an d one t r o u b l e s

This is due not solely to the quantitative preponderance o f this them

others but also to the structure o f ‘barking’ in operation on the site C ° V£r
econ om ic relations, the Pleasure Beach has tw o levels. The w hole o f u** 'ts
F
in tlK
f l i g h t . Space is com pressed - by other people and by the darkness
jn _ and there’s the added edge o f an assertive pleasure that refuses
Pre^'onquers the life-d en ying darkness, friends to egg or be egged on by. to
ancl Car)d double dare. It’s one thing to go in ‘G lasgow w eek ’ - not my scene,
is ow ned by B lackpool Pleasure Beach Ltd, w hich also runs all o f the 6 S'te
rides and features as w ell as the indoor entertainm ent com p lexes. Most m^ 0r dare jjy _ and, as an Oldhamer, quite another to go in ‘Oldham week'.
sm aller rides, sid e-sh ow s and sm all stalls, by contrast, are run by indepen* ^ Pe^S° gakhtin, carnival was, above all, a practice o f the people. It possessed
operators, or ‘co n cession aires’, w ho make over a portion o f their take6^)16111 sedimented form in fixed and permanent structures, but a vibrant and
com pany in return for the right to operate. This dual econom y has defin'*16 n0t ing form, living only in the street-theatre o f the people. If carnival
con sequ en ces for the structure o f ‘barking’. Traditional form s o f aggressi^ C rs the Pleasure Beach - and som etim es it does - it is through the people
salesm anship survive only in the independently operated side-shows and c ho tumble in from the prom enade with their stetson hats, group sw agger
stalls where relations o f com petition persist. The large rides and features "nd bravado, appropriating the Pleasure Beach for a different practice as they
run as an integrated business rather than as separate enterprises. They are b r e a k the rules o f its laid-out and provided pleasures - by m arching arm-in-
staffed by uniform ed em p loyees and, fo llo w in g the practice at Disneyland arm d o w n the w alkw ays, dipping one another in the p ools by the R iver Caves
the visitor is increasingly encouraged to buy books o f tickets giving access and splashing passers-by, w hooping it up in the Ghost Train, trying to sink
to all rides rather than to pay for rides individually. G iven these economic the logs o n the Log Flum e, taking the piss out o f the laughing clow n , rocking
relations, it is the co llec tiv e ‘h a il’, getting p eop le into the Pleasure Beach, the R o lle r Coaster. The Pleasure B each is not a site o f transgressions. It is a
that is important. O nce there, it is immaterial how they spend their money so site to be transgressed but one w hich, to a degree, invites - incites even - its
long as they spend it. A s a con seq u en ce, few o f the individual rides own transgression. In its constructed separateness from the outside world,
aggressively so licit custom - there’s no address made to the public and, m aterially bracketed by the en closin g w alls, the Pleasure Beach engenders
m ostly, they contain m erely the nam e o f the ride, its price and a notice saying ex p ec ta tio n s o f untramelled pleasures w hich the id eo lo g ica l cod in g operative
w hich class o f ticket applies. It is by the co llectiv e hail o f the Pleasure Beach within it can only partly contain.
as a w hole - by its architecture, its public address system s, and its claims to
be the biggest, the best, the latest - that the individual is placed as a pleasure-
seeker under the sign o f m odernity.
Yet such interpellations can be refused or, at least, negotiated. It is easy to
get a on e-sid ed im pression o f the Pleasure Beach by concentrating solely on
the system o f pleasure constituted by the nature o f its rides, their disposition
in relation to one another and the signs under w hich they are coded for
consum ption. The Pleasure Beach is not just a site o f pleasures, not just a set
o f buildings and rides con ceived as uninhabited structures; there are usua у
people there too, m ostly in groups o f different siz es, shapes and complexions
and with different histories, traditions and purposes. U sually to go to
Pleasure Beach is a cultural event, a distinct m om ent in the histoi у ot a gr° ^
be it a cou p le, a fam ily, a youth-club or neighbourhood om ing .0^ ^ ^ иа15<
trip. Far from im posing its ‘regim e o f pleasu re’ on a series ot m ^
construed as puppets o f its organization, the Pleasure Beach is (he
negotiated in different w ays by different groups in acc0R an“ ned The
cultural relations and p rocesses characterizing the group c ° nce(he tirning
group context in w hich you go to the Pleasure Beach, as w t as ^ ^ (he
o f the visit, m akes a difference to the way it is ex Per*ence initiati°n
daytim e, as a parent, is one thing: you are a custodian in a c° m.P a six УеаГ
cerem ony as terror quickly g ives way to the no-hands sang- rot a gr0up
old pestering to go on the R evolution. But go there in the rue 1 ta^en t^an
o f friends and it’s quite different. Pleasures are less surreptitious

244 245
 NOT ES

INTRODUCTION

1 Apart from a brief period in revolutionary France, the impetus for the nineteenth-
century development of public museums has usually derived from statist or
governmental strategies rather than from any commitment to democratic prin­
ciples as unqualified ends in themselves. However, this has not prevented
retrospective accounts in which the development of public museums and the
development of political democracy are presented as essentially related phenom­
ena. Perhaps the most passionately stated of such accounts was presented by T.R.
Adams in 1939. For Adams, the ideals of museums and those of political
democracy were so closely intertwined that it was impossible to imagine the one
developing and prospering without the other: ‘a flourishing museum in a city of
moderate size’, as Adams puts it, ‘can be taken as a symptom of rounded
democracy’ (Adams 1939: 16).
2 For details of such assessments, see Kasson (1978).
3 For the most influential account of this kind, see Wittlin (1949).
4 Edwards’s position, however, was quite complex in that his objection to asking
library users to reveal their occupation was partly that the formality of the request
might deter some from joining libraries. See Edwards (1869).
5 This conclusion is based on the bibliography of visitor studies in Hudson
(1975) and the annotated bibliography of museum behaviour papers by Erp and
Loomis (1973).

1 THE FO R M A TIO N OF THE M U SEU M

1 I have discussed these matters in greater detail elsewhere. See Bennett (1992).
2 For a discussion of the role of Ruskin - and Morris — in the development
of museums as instruments for the reformation of popular taste, see M a cD o n a ld
(1986).
3 Edwin Chadwick was especially taken with the last of these possibilities, dw elling
at length on an incident in Manchester when the Chief Commissioner of Police
prevented a Chartist meeting from becoming an occasion ‘for getting up what was
called a demonstration of the working classes’ by persuading the mayor ‘to get
the Botanical Gardens, Zoological Gardens, and Museum of that town, and other
institutions, thrown open to the working classes at the hour they were urgently
invited to attend the Chartist meeting’. This stratagem, Chadwick notes, succeeded
in so reducing attendance at the Chartist meeting that it ‘entirely failed’. See
Richardson (1887, vol. 2: 128).

246
 NOTES

4 See, for the classic discussions of the juridico-discursive conception of power,

Foucault (1980b), especially the essays ‘Two Lectures’ and ‘Truth and Power’.
5 See Gordon (1991) for a discussion of the relations between the concepts of
disciplinary and governmental power in Foucault’s work.
6 While Habermas’s account of the formation of the bourgeois public sphere is
concerned primarily with common tendencies in seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century European societies, he also notes national differences. In the case of
France and England, these had a crucial bearing on the gendered composition of
the institutions comprising the bourgeois public sphere with the role accorded the
salons in France allowing women more influence in this respect than was true of
Britain where the critical institution of the coffee-house excluded women.
Women’s opposition to coffee-houses was thus strong from the earliest days of
their establishment; see Ellis (1956) for details.
7 See Crow (1985) for a discussion of the role played by criticism of the annual
exhibitions of the Academy in the formation of a political culture critical of the
state.
8 For a discussion of related issues in relation to scientific societies, see Forgan
(1986).
9 It is worth noting that Habermas has subsequently indicated his acceptance of
criticisms of this type in outlining how Bakhtin’s work led him to revalue the
position of plebeian culture in relation to the bourgeois public sphere. See
Habermas (1992: 427).
10 Geoff Eley usefully stresses the respects in which this active exclusion of women
from the political sphere should be regarded as a new set of gender relations rather
than as a survival of archaic patriarchal structures. See Eley (1992).
11 For the most illuminating discussion of these similarities see Harris (1978),
although there is also much useful incidental information in Ferry (1960).
12 Susan Porter Benson thus notes the respects in which American department stores
would reserve exclusive zones for special categories of customers while also using
marketing techniques to differentiate ‘the carriage trade’ from ‘the shawl trade’
and, where possible, to segregate these in different sections of the store. See
Benson (1988: 83-9). For a discussion of similar tensions in the case of the
nineteenth-century art museum and of the ways in which these were managed, see
Sherman (1989).
13 See also Haug (1986) for a discussion of the ways in which the body of the sales
assistant was tailored to the requirements of the sales process in being streamlined
to fit in with the world commodities. McBride (1978) offers a related discussion
in the French context.
14 This invisible order of significance is both an effect of the arrangement of objects
within the sphere of the visible while also supplying the grid of intelligibility
governing the field of the visible. In this respect, in spite of their contrasting
terminologies, there is a good deal in common between Pomian’s concept of the
invisible and Foucault’s notion of visibilities: that is, systems of visualization
governing the distribution of things within the sphere of the visible but which
themselves remain unseen, not because they are hidden but because they provide
the distribution of light and shade through which things are given to be seen in
the context of specific relations of knowledge and power. For a more detailed
discussion of this aspect of Foucault’s work, see Rajchman (1988).
*5 I have relied mainly on Pommier (1989) for this discussion of the Louvre.
However, see also Poulot (1983) and Quoniam and Guinamard (1988). Canteral-
Besson (1981) has also proved useful: it comprises the minutes of the proceedings
of both the Conservatoire and the earlier Commission du Museum and a useful
247
 NOTES *

introduction which explains why - out of political prudence - these bodies fought
shy of controversial museological issues.
16 For the most telling discussion of the temporalizing strategies through which
modern anthropology made its object, see Fabian (1983).
17 For a parallel discussion of the inter-epistemic character of the anatomical theatr
at Leiden, see Cavaille (1990).
18 Owen was engagingly precise in his formulations on this matter when submitting
his estimates to parliament regarding the space requirements of a national museum
of natural history. Allowing for the number of specimens already collected, f0r
the recent rate of discovery of new species and projecting this forward to provide
for an increase in the rate of discovery, and allowing for display principles that
would allow the visitor to see variations within a class as well as the historical
succession of different forms of life, he calculated that a two-storey building
spread over five acres would allow for an adequately representative collection.
19 Johann Geist, in tracing the network of relations between the architectural
principles of arcades, exhibitions, museums and social utopias, suggests that it
would be meaningless to assert a historical priority for any one of these
architectural forms over the others. Rather, he argues, they have to be understood
as an ensemble whose different elements interacted from the outset. See Geist
(1983). Be this as it may, museum architecture often followed on, rather than
leading, developments in other fields. This was partly because the influence of
earlier building types intended to house valued objects (temples for the arts, royal
palaces, etc.) inhibited the construction of buildings that were specifically
designed for the museum’s new purpose of mass instruction. This led to frequent
complaints on the part of reformers anxious that culture should perform its
reforming labours in a custom-built environment. ‘We have thirsted for know­
ledge,’ James Fergusson complained in 1849, ‘and our architects have given us
nothing but stones’ (Fergusson 1849: 8). See, for similar complaints two decades
later, Wallace (1869).

2 THE EXHIBITIONARY COMPLEX

1 This point is well made by MacArthur who sees this aspect of Foucault’s argument
as inimical to the overall spirit of his work in suggesting a ‘historical division
which places theatre and spectacle as past’ (MacArthur 1983: 192).
2 For discussion of the role of the American state in relation to museums and
expositions, see, respectively, Meyer (1979) and Reid (1979).
3 For details of the use of rotunda and galleries to this effect in department stores,
see Ferry (1960).
4 For further details, see Miller (1974).
5 A comprehensive introduction to these earlier forms is offered by Impey and
MacGregor (1985) and Bazin (1967).
6 I have touched on these matters elsewhere. See Bennett (1983) and (1986).
7 For details of these interactions, see Rudwick (1985).
8 1 draw here on Foucault (1970).
9 For the most thorough account, see Mulvaney (1958: 30-1).

3 THE P O L I T IC A L R A T IO N A L IT Y OF TH E M U SEU M

1 I have, however, touched on this matter with particular reference to Australian

museums. See Bennett (1988b) and Chapter 5 of this volume.
248
 NOTES

2 For details of the changing fortunes of Cuvierism and Darwinism at the Natural
History Museum, see Stearn (1981).
3 See on the first point, Cooper (1974) and, on the second, Stallybrass and White
(1986).
4 This aspect of the ratio n al recreatio n s m ovem ent is vividly h ighlighted by
Bailey (1987).
5 I intend the phrase ‘supervised conformity’ as a means of foregrounding the
contrast between the museums and what Ian Hunter has characterized as the space
of ‘supervised freedom’ of the school playground. See Hunter (1988). Whereas
the latter encouraged the free expression of the child’s culture under the
supervision of the teacher in order that the values of the street might be monitored
and corrected, the museums encouraged, instead, exterior compliance with the
codes of behaviour.
6 For further details, see Altick (1978).
7 For fuller information on the sources of nineteenth-century museum architecture,
see Giedion (1967).
8 Foucault, in reminding us of this aspect of Bentham’s vision of panopticism, notes
the respects in which it echoes the Rousseauist dream, so influential in the French
Revolution, of a society rendered transparent to itself. See Foucault (1980b). In
this respect, a further architectural lineage for the museum could be suggested in
tracing its descent from various architectural arrangements proposed in revolu­
tionary France in order to build a principle of public inspection into the design of
political assemblies. For details of these, see Hunt (1984).
9 See, for example, Mann (1986), Heinich (1988) and Dixon et al. (1974).

4 M U S E U M S A N D ‘T H E P E O P L E ’

1 For useful surveys of these developments, see Minihan (1977) and Pearson (1982).
2 The most thorough survey oFthese matters is Hosmer (1965).
3 It has been estimated that, in Britain, a new museum was opened on average every
two weeks throughout the 1970s when the number of visitors per annum also
averaged out at 25 million. See Bassett (1986).
4 One of the best discussions of these questions is the penultimate chapter of
Inglis (1974).
5 For the best account of the War Memorial, see Inglis (1985).
6 For a brief history of the Barracks and its conversion, see Betteridge (1982).

5 O U T OF W H I C H PAST?

1 The reference is to the campaigns of John Ruskin and William Morris against the
often somewhat violent practices of nineteenth-century restorers. For details, see
Prince (1981).
2 By way of emphasizing this point, my position differs from that of Hodge and
D ’Souza who argue that, in museums ‘An artefact communicates by being what
it is. It therefore communicates or signifies that perfectly’ (Hodge and D ’Souza
1979: 257). This ignores the fact that, once placed in a historical frame, an artefact
never is what it was and so, simply by virtue of this difference, cannot claim a
meaning which is identical with itself - for that identity is split. The historical
frame, in opening up a distance between the present and past existence of an
object, enables the artefact to function as a sign. But it can function as a sign only
within this gap which can therefore never be entirely closed down through a
circuit of perfect communication such as Hodge and D ’Souza suggest. It is solely

249
 NOTES

by virtue of its present conditions of existence (its placement in a museum and

its arrangement in relation to other artefacts) that the museum artefact is
transformed into a sign-vehicle for the communication of meanings about its past
conditions of existence (its uses, its role in economic activities or communal ways
of life). Unless the non-identity between these two different aspects of the museum
artefact is maintained, it is impossible to appreciate the nature of its functioning
as a sign and especially the potential for the same artefact to signify the past
differently if the broader representational context provided by the historical frame
in which it is located is modified.
3 See, for a telling discussion of such considerations, Bickford (1985).
4 Pevsner traces the origins of historicized principles of museum display to the
Dusseldorf Gallery in 1775. However, he agrees with Bann and Bazin in contending
that nationalized conceptions of history first achieved a museological embodiment
in post-revolutionary France - in, first, Alexandre Lenoir’s Musee des monuments
frangais (1795) and, subsequently, in Alexandre du Sommerard’s collection at the
Hotel de Cluny. See, respectively, Pevsner (1976), Bann (1984) and Bazin (1967).
5 Fora brief review of European (and Japanese) heritage legislation, see Tay (1985).
For details of American heritage legislation, see Hosmer (1965 and 1981).
6 See Inglis (1983) for a discussion of the role of local committees and local
subscriptions in the erection of war memorials.
7 The Order of the A IF, encouraging troops to donate war mementoes, recognized
the strength of anti-Commonwealth feeling in fostering the impression that
donated materials would be housed in national collections, with the stress on the
plural. It was thought that more materials would be donated if it was believed they
were destined for state collections. It was similarly important that the materials
were shown for extended periods in both Sydney and Melbourne prior to their
permanent location in Canberra, as this enabled state-based emotional investments
in the collections to be subsequently transfered to the capital. For details, see
Millar (1986).
8 For a detailed summary of these debates, see Kavanagh (1984).
9 For details of the processes through which the ideological associations of the
figure of the digger were transformed, see Ross (1985) and White (1981).
10 The protracted debates regarding the appropriate imagery for the central statue in
the Hall of Memory are of special interest in this respect. While several allegorical
female figures were considered for this purpose, the final decision, as Inglis puts
it, was for ‘a huge and upright male figure: the serviceman himself’ (Inglis 1985:
120). Inglis elaborates the dominant effect of this figure as follows: ‘To the
uninstructed observer the only clear message it emits is that this Memorial belongs
to men at war. The sculpture finally chosen for the scared space affirmed no
continuity between the soldiers and the rest of the nation’ (ibid.: 12 2 ).
11 The text describing the symbols accompanying the naval gunner representing
Ancestry reads as follows: ‘The wreath indicates reverence for the renowned; the
book, traditional knowledge; cricket stumps and ball, traditional recreation;
church spire, the European tradition of Christianity’ (Guide to the Australian War
M emorial , revised edition, 1953: 3).
12 These paintings, now housed in one room, were originally contained in two
separate rooms, and were thus accorded a greater symbolic importance than is
presently the case.
13 The bitter struggle was with the Imperial War Memorial which also wished to
claim the Mosaic. The point at issue in the dispute was whether the A IF could lay
claim to war spoils in its own right or whether, as an imperial force, its claims Ш
this regard should be ceded automatically to Britain.
14 As with all starting points, however, this one is to some degree arbitrary. The

250
 NOT P . S

initiatives of the Whitlam government in the spheres of museum and heritage policy
need also to be viewed in the context of the tendency towards the nationing of
cultural property evident throughout the 1960s - the Menzies-initiated committee
of inquiry leading to the eventual establishment of the Australian National Gallery;
the 1960 legislation enabling the establishment of the National Library of Australia,
and so on. For details of these developments, see Lloyd and Sekuless (1980).
15 This is contrary to the view of the Planning Committee of the Gallery of Aboriginal
Australia, which recommended that the Gallery be established as an autonomous
institution on its own site. This outcome was to some degree anticipated by the
context governing the terms of the Planning Committee’s inquiry. Set up at the
same time as the Pigot Committee, its position was ambiguous from the outset,
in that it was required to report to parliament in its own right while also reporting
to the Pigott Committee which then incorporated that report within its own.
16 This commitment was reviewed in 1987 when it was uncertain whether the
projected Museum of Australia would go ahead or not.
17 By 1981, the National Trust had a total of 70,000 members while the Australian
Federation of Historical Societies had 45,000 members. The National Trust of
New South Wales increased its membership from 22,865 in 1978 to an estimated
30,080 in 1981. See A ustralia’s National Estate: The Role o f the Commonwealth
(1985) - first published as The National Estate in 1981.
18 Ministerial statement on the National Estate, Parliamentary Debates, House of
Representatives, vol. 90, 23 August-30 October, 1974, p. 1536.
19 While still a relatively subordinate curatorial grouping within the Australian
museum world, historians (and especially social historians) have, since the 1970s,
become increasingly involved in the development of curatorial and display
policies - at the Power House Museum, the West Australian and the Victorian
Museum for example. Their role in planning the Museum of Australia has also
been appreciable. The Interim Council of the Museum of Australia thus undertook
‘to establish the basis for cofitinuing involvement by professional historians in
the planning and development of the Museum’ (Museum of Australia 1982a: 3).
One consequence of this commitment was a conference of historians convened by
the Interim Council to canvass a range of possible themes for the Museum. For
the collected proceedings of this conference, see Museum of Australia 1982b.
20 For a critical assessment of the basis on which tourist industry calculations are
made, see Craik (1988).
21 This discussion of verisimilitude is drawn from Barthes (1987: 34-6).
22 A good example of this is provided by Lord Chartis of Amisfield (1984) who, in
listing a number of items ‘saved’ by the British National Memorial Fund, manages
to place trade-union barriers cheek-by-jowl with an avenue of elms, Coalbrookdale
Old Furnace and the Mary Rose without any sense of incongruity.
23 The specificity of this rhetoric of the land is highlighted by Bommes and Wright’s
(1982) discussion of the sharply contrasting rhetoric of preservation which has
characterized Shell’s advertising in Britain.
24 I have discussed the Rocks in more detail elsewhere. See Bennett (1988d).
25 For a discussion of a critical experiment with this form, see Fortier (1981).

7 MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS: NARRATIVE,

IDEOLOGY, PERFORM ANCE

1 The first life-size reconstructions of dinosaurs placed on public display were those
designed for the gardens accompanying the Crystal Palace when, after 1851, it
was removed to Sydenham. Their design and installation was superintended by
251
 NOTES

Richard Owen whose depiction of the dinosaurs (a term he coined in 1841) was
designed to refute the existence of the mechanism of transformism on which
Lamarckian evolutionary theory depended. For details, see Desmond (1982)
Rudwick (1992) and Stocking (1987).
2 1 have already discussed Flower’s proposals for natural history displays in
Chapter 1. For details of the relations between Pitt Rivers and Flower and their
respective proposals for the arrangement of museum exhibits, see Chapman
(1981).
3 This is not to say that Pitt Rivers’s expectations proved to be validated by
experience. In a spirited defence of the principles of geo-ethnic displays,
W.H. Holmes, the head curator in the Department of Anthropology at the United
States National Museum, took issue with the kind of concentric arrangement
proposed by Pitt Rivers as likely to ‘be highly perplexing to any but the trained
student, and wholly beyond the grasp of the ordinary visitor’ (Holmes 1902: 360).
4 In other rooms, however, paintings are accorded quite different functions. There
are thus a number of connecting galleries in which the paintings are displayed
because of their place in the history of art rather than as parts of more general
social or political histories. This inconsistency, however, is a productive one in
the tension it establishes with more conventional forms of art exhibition. The
Musee Carnavalet has been similarly innovative in its special exhibitions: see
Mitchell (1978).
5 Henry Balfour, President of the Museums Association, founded in 1888, was thus
active in urging museums to adopt the evolutionary principles of display
exemplified by the Pitt Rivers Museum. See Skinner (1986: 392-3).
6 There is not space here for a detailed discussion of the relations between these
two Societies. For informative, if also somewhat contrasting accounts, see
Stocking (1987: 245-63), Rainger (1978) and Burrow (1963).
7 For an example of this degenerationist discourse in an early nineteenth-century
religious tract written to guide parents in ways of using museum visiting as an
aid to biblical instruction for their children, see Elizabeth (1837).
8 This is obviously an oversimplified version of a complex history. For further
details, see Ferrari (1987), Richardson (1988) and Wilson (1987).
9 The reasons for viewing the female genitalia as inferior to the male derive from
Galen’s views regarding the flow and distribution of heat within the body. The
male organs were viewed as more perfect in view of their capacity to generate
their own heat and so be able to function outside the body. The uterus, viewed as
an inverted penis, lacked this capacity for self reliance and so was tucked up within
the body as a source of warmth.
10 For an especially interesting discussion of the politics of the representation of
women’s bodies in the French Revolution, see Hunt (1991).
11 The literature on this subject is vast. Apart from the relevant sources I have cited
for other purposes, I have drawn on the following discussions in elaborating my
arguments: Haller and Haller (1974), Easlea (1981), Mosedale (1978), Fee (1979)
and Richards (1983).
12 Sayers (1982) and Love (1983) discuss the difficulties that Darwinism created for
feminist thought, while Gamble (1894) exemplifies an early feminist rebuttal of
the view that woman was merely a less-evolved man.

8 T H E S H A P I N G O F T H I N G S T O C O M E : E X P O ’ 88

1 For a fuller discussion and exemplification of this connection, see Greenhalgh

(1988) and Anderson and Wachtel (1986).
252
 NOTES

2 For as good an example as any of the synchronization of these different times,

see Silverman (1977).
3 Although not dealing specifically with an official international exposition, Colin
McArthur’s discussion of the Glasgow Empire Exhibition offers a telling
illustration of this point. See McArthur (1986).
4 See, for a detailed discussion of the city politics associated with Chicago’s
World’s Columbian Exhibition, Reid (1979).
5 The scandal was occasioned by the decision of the Minister for Tourism, John
Brown, to use a new technology in telling the story of the Dreamtime. The
technology concerned - holavision - basically comprises a diorama animated by
both living actors and holographic projections, thus providing an expositionary
equivalent of the techniques for combining animation and live acting used in films
like Mary Poppins. Unfortunately, it was an American invention and had already
been used for a similar purpose at Vancouver’s Expo ’86. The debates this
occasioned nicely illustrated the potential contradiction between the time of the
nation and the international time of modernity. For how could the Australian
Pavilion portray Australia as modernity’s leading edge when it had to rely on
imported technology to tell the story of its oldest inhabitants in the most modern
manner possible? For fuller discussions of the episode and its role in occasioning
Brown’s resignation, see the reviews of Amanda Buckley and Margo Kingston in
Times on Sunday , 10 January 1988.
6 For Bob Weatherall of F A IR A , the Brisbane-based Foundation for Aboriginal and
Islander Research Action, Expo was unequivocally a part of the Bicentenary and,
apart from offering a suitable public vehicle for Aboriginal protest against the
Bicentenary, was itself to be opposed as being tarred with the same brush. (See
the feature ‘Aboriginals to push rights “ inside Expo’” , Brisbane Telegraph, 15
January 1988, and ‘Assessing the Bicentennial: Interview with Bob Weatherall’,
Social Alternatives, vol. 8, no. 1, April 1989). Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal
was somewhat more Equivocal when commenting on her part in writing the text
for the Rainbow Serpent in the Australian Pavilion: ‘This is not a Bicentennial
thing. The Bicentenary is the celebration of white settlement. What we have
written is for the world’s market-place’ (Melbourne Age, 28 March 1988). This
view does not, however, seem to have been widely supported. Nigel Hopkins
reports that, when asked about the Rainbow Serpent, a F A IR A representative
replied: ‘We do feel concerned about it. It’s an important part of spiritual culture.
But we can’t comment on it; that’s a matter for us to deal with. Just say we won’t
be going to see it, that’s a ll’ (Nigel Hopkins, ‘Expose: the story behind Brisbane’s
megashow’, Adelaide Advertiser, 30 April 1988). No matter how its relations to
the Bicentenary were assessed, however, Expo’s impact on the local Aboriginal
culture - and especially the threat it posed to Musgrave Park, a meeting place for
the Turabul people - provided widely shared grounds for opposition to Expo and
a stimulus for the organization of the Indigenous Cultural Survival Festival timed
to coincide with Expo’s opening. The community feeling over this was so strong
as to result in the banishment of Don Davidson, president of the Brisbane
Aboriginal Legal Service, when, later in the year, he criticized Aboriginal protests
against Expo and assisted Sir Llew Edwards, the Expo Chairman, in raising an
Aboriginal flag on the Expo site. (See ‘Elder banished in Expo row’, The
Australian, 24 May 1988). As for official responses to Aboriginal protests, these
were all vintage Queensland in style. Long before Expo opened Edwards was stern
in warning that protest would not be tolerated, advising of State Government plans
for 150 riot police to prevent racial violence. When, in May, a land-rights march
developed into an unauthorized sit-in protest at a refusal to serve an elderly
Aboriginal at the Melbourne Hotel, thirty arrests were made. The following

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morning saw Mike Ahern, State Premier, announce a ‘get tough’ campaign against
Aboriginal demonstrators, stating: ‘If they want to continue some reasonable
demonstrations over in a corner somewhere, that’s fine’ (The Australian 4 Mav
1988). y
7 See, on the first of these issues, ‘Expo’s tragic exiles’, Melbourne Sun, 9 April
1988; ‘Gays allege Expo clean-up’, National Times, 23 February 1988; and ‘City
gets bare facts on Expo’, Melbourne Sun, 24 June 1988.
8 For other instances of the technology/progress connection, see Greenhalgh (1988-
23-4).
9 It might be argued that, in this respect, modern expositions rest on a different
signifying economy from their nineteenth-century predecessors. These, Timothy
Mitchell has suggested, formed part of a new machinery of representation in which
everything ‘seemed to be set up as though it were the model or the picture of
something, arranged before an observing subject into a system of signification
declaring itself to be a mere object, a mere “signifier o f” something further’
(Mitchell 1989: 222). The tendency for expositionary technologies to become self-
referring, however, confirms Eco’s contention that modern expositions are
increasingly expositions of themselves.
10 For the fullest discussion of the display of people as living props for evolutionary
rhetorics of progress, see Rydell (1984).
11 The stress on modernity is a relatively recent innovation in Britain’s exposition
pavilions. While imperialist themes had governed the terms of Britain’s self­
display at the Great Exhibition and most of its immediate successors, the late
nineteenth-century threat to Britain’s imperial supremacy prompted the invention
of Olde England as the main component in Britain’s exposition pavilions. This
was complemented, at the New York 1939 World’s Fair, by the projection of
England as the mother of democracy via a display in the Magna Carta Hall which
suggested the American revolution had sprung from the love of democracy
implanted by English settlers. (Further details, see Greenhalgh 1988: 112-28,
137-8). A similar claim was made at Expo ’88 where the Lincoln Cathedral copy
of the Magna Carta was displayed as a foundational document in the establishment
of modern civil and democratic rights. In these and other respects - the display
of Cook memorabilia in the Captain Cook Pavilion, a hi-tech animated mannikin
of Joseph Banks in the entry to the British Pavilion, the Domesday Project
computer allowing Australians to trace their roots back to their English forebears
- the British displays sought to assert some rights of progeny over the Australian
nation.
12 For an account of the emergence and increasing significance of corporate
pavilions, see Benedict (1983).
13 For a discussion of a similar rhetoric in another context, see Bennett (1986).
14 It’s relevant, in this context, to note the contrast between Expo ’88 which, as Fry
and Willis rightly note, remained modernist in its governing conceptions, and the
Australian Bicentennial Exhibition (ABE) whose design principles, emerging
largely from Sydney, were governed by postmodernist assumptions. For a
discussion of this aspect of the ABE, see Cochrane and Goodman (1988).
15 Melbourne correspondents were especially prone to describe their experiences of
Expo in the terms of these discursive co-ordinates, typically driving a wedge
between the time of Expo and that of the city in suggesting that the hyper­
modernity of the former served to underscore the backwardness of the latter. In
some cases, this was merely a matter of keeping Brisbane in the discursive register
of the quaint and thus confirming its continuing suitability as an imaginative
retreat from the more advanced and harassed rhythms of urban life in Sydney and
Melbourne. Thus, for Beverley Johanson, while Brisbane may have ‘come of age

254
 NOTES

in terms of development, the ‘pace is still slower than its southern counterparts,
and the street fashion a little less fashionable, but it is an interesting, relaxing and
friendly place’ (M elbourne Age, 16 March 1988). In other cases, however, the
concern was to put the country cousins back in their place. For Robert Haupt,
going outside Expo and into the city was a trip into the past - back to 1962 - just
as talking to its inhabitants was to encounter a backward species, friendly types,
but ‘all “Hi!” and no tech’ (Melbourne Age, 26 April 1988).
16 For detailed discussion of the role of the Great Exhibition in this regard, see Altick
(1978).
17 These distinctions were, however, less sharp in the United States where museum
ventures like P.T. Barnum’s straddled the worlds of circus, zoo, freak show,
cabinet of curiosities, theatre, and museum. For further details, see Harris (1973)
and Betts (1959).
18 I have, however, offered a fuller account elsewhere. See Bennett (1988a).
19 The record regarding the exclusion of fairground culture from official exposition
exhibits is clear. Greenhalgh (1988) thus records the refusal to allow the exhibition
of the ‘preserved remains of Julia Pastrana, half woman, half baboon, the oldest
loaf in the world and a man-powered flying machine’ at the South Kensington
Exhibition of 1862 because of their fairground associations. For one of the best
general discussions of this tension, see Benedict (1983).
20 See, for a literary portrayal of the 1939 Midway, Doctorow (1985). According to
McCullough, the voyeurism of the Oscar the Amorous Octopus show was
paralleled in the official exposition itself with various pretexts being exploited for
the exhibition of naked women.
21 Three amusement parks were established at Coney Island in the course o f a decade:
Sea Lion Park in 1895 (changed to Luna Park in 1903); Steeplechase Park in 1897;
and Dreamland in 1904. For full accounts of these, see Kasson (1978). For a
discussion focusing specifically on the role of mechanical rides in modernizing
the culture of fhe fair, see Snow and Wright (1976).
22 See, for example, my discussion of the formation of Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach
in Chapter 9.
23 See the section ‘National Culture and Recreation: Antidotes to V ice’ in Cole
(1884).
24 See, on this aspect of nineteenth-century public life, Sennett (1978).
25 This transformation in the symbolism of the fair is fully detailed in Cunningham
(1980).

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 I N DE X

Aboriginal 102-4; Australian 79, 121, 169, 181

132-3, 145, 150-1; culture 253n; Ashmolean Museum 29
history 215 atavism; as moral function 3-5, 204
Adams, T.R. 246n Australia; histories of 148-62; and
Adelaide Advertiser 253n penal pasts 153-5; and tourist pasts
Adelaide Migration and Settlement 156-62
Museum 145 Australian, The 253n-254n
Adorno, Theodor 92, 243 Australian: Bicentennial Authority 145,
Agassiz, Louis 41, 191 210; Bicentennial Exhibition 145,
Ahern, Mike 254n 254n; Council of National Trusts
Alaya, Flavia 207 123, 136, 143, 161; Federation of
AIF 138; Order of 250n Historical Societies 2 5 In; Heritage
Allen, Jim 128-9, 154 Bill 123, 142-3; Heritage
Altes Museum 92, 181 Commission 131; National Estate
Altick, Richard 65, 71, 75, 204, 249n, 149; National Gallery 251n
255n Australian War Memorial 122-3, 133,
American Museum of Natural History 135, 138-40, 146, 249n, 250n; Hall
180, 207 of Memories 139-40, 145
amusement parks 3, 4, 5, 255n; and
pleasure 237-8 Baartman, Saartje 77-8, 202
ancien regime 63, 89, 93, 95 backtelling 177-81, 207
Anderson, Benedict 141-2, 148 Bailey, Peter 32, 249n
Anderson, Robert 215, 252n Bakhtin, Mikhail 242, 245, 255n
Anfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Balfour, Henry 252n
Society 112 Bann, Stephen 39, 75, 96, 250n
Anthropological Society 191, 200 Barnum, P.T. 5, 255n
Antoinette, Marie 156 Baroque aesthetics 170-1
arcades 186 Barthes, Roland 84, 2 5 In
architecture 48, 50-1, 55-6, 63-5, 68, Bassett, D.A. 249n
7 5,89, 94, 100-1, 124-5, 186, 235 Bauman, Zygmunt 192
architectural practices 51-3 Bazin, Germaine 76, 138, 248n, 250n
Armstrong, Meg 187 BBC 110-11
Arnold, Edward 192 Beamish Open Air Museum 110-21,
art; and theory 163-73 125, 127
art galleries 10; and public instruction Bean, C.E.W. 139-40
35-8, 167; and theory 164-5 Bean, William George 232
art history 2, 96 Beer, Gillian 190
art museums 37-8, 43-4, 55, 59, 92, Belle Vue Gardens 12

270
 INDEX

Belvedere Galleries/Palace 34, 37 Buckley, Amanda 253n

Benedict, Burton 74-5, 254n-255n Buck-Morss, Susan 182
Benjamin, Walter 26, 81, 182 Builders Labourers’ Federation 124
Bennett, Tony i, 246n, 248n, 2 5 In, 255n Bullock, William 56
Benson, Susan Porter 31, 247n Bureau International des Expositions
Bentham, Jeremy 67, 69, 101, 249n (B IE )210
Berlin 92 Burke, Peter 115
Bethnal Green Museum 43, 53, 196, Burn, Ian 172
198-9, 200 Burrow, J.W. 252n
Betteridge, M. 249n Buss, William 53
Betts, John 255n
Bibliotheque Royale 96 Cabinets de curieux (cabinets of
Bicentennial 145, 210-12, 253n; curiosities) 2, 40, 59, 60, 73, 78, 93,
protests 212, 253n; Shipwreck 187, 255n; principle of singularity
Exhibition 149 213
Bickford, Anne 250n Cadman’s Cottage 155
Biological Anthropological Gallery, Cambodian temples 240
Musee de l ’homme (Paris) 189, 201 Canguilhem, Georges 190-1
Blackbourne, David 93 Canterel-Besson, Yveline 247n
Blackpool 11, 229-45; Central Pier carceral archipelago 59, 61, 68
230, 233; Golden Mile 230-1, 233, Carnegie Corporation 122, 135
236; Grand Theatre 236; Hotchkiss carnival 4, 242-5
Bicycle Railway 231; North Pier Cavaille, Jean-Pierre 248n
234; Pleasure Beach 229-45, 255n; Central Park New York 225
South Jetty 233; Switchback Railway Century of Progress Exposition 83
231; Tower 230-1, 235-6; Winter Chadwick, Edwin 246n
Garden 231, 233, 235-6 Chamber of Horrors 95
Boas, Franz 147 Chambers, Iain 82
Bogardus, James 43 Chapman, William 196, 199-200, 252n
Bologna 203 Chartis, Lord of Amisfield 133, 251n
Bommes, Michael 132, 161, 251n Chartists 70, 246n
Bon Marche 30, 52 Chelsea pensioners 70
Bond Corporation 152 Chicago World’s Columbian Exhibition
Borel, Pierre 40, 247n 5, 74, 83, 85, 209, 253n; White City
Borges, Jorge Luis 128 227; World Fair 235
Bourdieu, Pierre 10-11, 35, 163-4, Citizen Degerando 194
172-3 civic practices 219-28
bourgeoisification 169 Clark, Manning 161
Brand, Dana 66 Cleveland Arcade 51
Breckenridge, Carol 213 Clifford, James 172
Brisbane; Aboriginal Legal Service Clifton family 233
253n; Telegraph 253n Coalbrookdale Old Furnace 2 5 In
British: Association 182-3; National Cochrane, Peter 254n
Memorial Fund 2 5 In; Museum 41, coffee-houses 247n
55, 69, 71, 169 Cole, Sir Henry 20, 70, 102, 198, 225,
Brixham Cave 193 255n
Broca, Paul 202-3 colonialism 47
Bronze Age 183 colonnades of morality 48, 55-6
Brooklyn Institute 24 Colquhoun, Patrick 18-20
Brown, John 253n comparative anatomy 185, 203-4
Brown, Lee Rust 184 Commonwealth Historic Shipwreck
Buckingham, James Silk 17, 19, 20, 48, Exhibition 149
55-6 Committee of Inquiry on Museums and
271
 INDEX
National Collections 123
Committee of Inquiry into the National
Estate 123
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur 178
Coney Island 4-5 , 224, 226, 255n
Congres Internationale d’Anthropologie
et d'Archeologie Prehistorique 83
conjectural paradigm 177-8
Connolly, Billy 126
Conservatoire 37, 213, 247n
Cooee Park Bicentennial Local History
Museum 145
Cooper, David 99, 249n
Craik, Jennifer 2 5 In
craniology 206
Crimp, Douglas 59, 92-4
Crocodile Dundee 162
Crosby, Christina 46
Crow, Thomas 247n
crowd, the 55-8, 69-70, 72, 99
Crystal Palace 65, 80-1, 101, 213, 251n
culture; and class 164, 169-70, 200-1,
226: and government 6, 19-24, 31-2
Cunningham, Hugh 74, 255n
curatorship 124-7
Cuvier, Georges 78, 96, 177-8, 185,
191, 249n
Darbel, Alain 164, 172-3
Darwin, Charles 78, 96, 182, 190-3
Darwinism 190-3, 206, 249n, 252n
Davidson, Don 253n
Davison, Graeme 65, 68, 81
Daughters of the American Revolution
(DAR) 115-16
Day of Mourning Conference 121
degenerationist discourse 252n
de Medici, Francesco I 27
department store 29-31; as class space
31; as exhibitionary architecture 51;
as gendered space 29, 30-1
de Saint Yenne, La Font 37
Descartes, Rene 189
Desmond, Adrian 190, 252n
Disneyland 156-60
Di Souza, Wilfred 249n
Dixon, B. 249n
DNA 202
Doctorow, E.L. 255n
Donato, Eugenio 45
Don Quixote 128
Dreamtime, the 215, 253n
Dreamworld 157-8, 161
272
Dresden Gallery 2, 140, 34
Duncan, Carol 36, 38, 168
du Sommerard, Alexandre 76, 96, 250n
Dusseldorf Galleries 37, 96, 250n
Eagleton, Terry 242-3
Earl's Court Oriental Exhibition 236
Easlea, Brian 252n
Eco, Umberto 160, 215, 253n
Eden family 113
Edwards, Edward 8, 246n
Edwards, Llew 228, 253n
Eichenbaum, Boris 178
Eiffel Tower 69, 84, 219, 235
Eley, Geoff 93, 247n
Elias, Norbert 21
Elizabeth, Charlotte 252n
Ellis, A. 247n
Ellis, Sir Henry 55
Emberton, Joseph 235
Encyclopedists, the 37
Enlightenment, the 48, 92, 166, 192,
194
envoi system 168
episteme 33, 39, 95-6
Erp, Pamela Elliot-Van 246n
Ethnological Society 191, 195
Europe 59, 82, 115-16, 123, 140, 149
Evans, Robin 94
evolutionary practices 39, 83, 179-87,
190, 192, 206, 213-19
exhibitionary complex 59-88, 69, 73,
77, 79, 188, 248n; and apparatuses
80-6; and disciplines 7, 63-9, 75-80
exhibitions 5, 80-2, 169, 179; and
disciplines 75; and visitors 83
Expo '86 215, 253n
Expo '88 11, 209-28, 252n-255n;
Captain Cook Pavilion 211; Expo
Authority 227; Technoplaza 217;
World Expo Park 219, 224
expositions 75, 84, 209-28, 254n; and
anthropology 83; and centennial
celebrations 209, 248n, 255n; and
consumption 227-8; and
evolutionary exercises 213-19; and
modernity 209-11, 214-15, 218-19
expositionary practices 209-30
Fabian, Johannes 194, 248n
Fabianski, Marcin 181
fairs 1, 3, 5-6, 55, 74, 75, 86, 99, 125,
223-6, 255n
 INDEX

Familistere (Social Palace) 50—1 Goode, George Brown 20-1, 24, 42, 58,
Fee, Elizabeth 252n 167, 180
femininity: naturalization of 29 Goodman, David 222, 254n
Fergusson, James 248n Gordon, Colin 247
Ferrari, Giovanni 203, 252n Gordon Riots 69
Ferrante Imperato Museum 78 Gould, Stephen Jay 191, 202-3
Ferry, John 247n-248n government; and family 18, 25; as
Festival: of Britain 236; of Labour instrument of improvement 18; of
50-1 self 18-20, 50-1, 69, 87, 188-9, 218,
festivals, and citizenship 49-51 226
First Fleet 149 Gramsci, Antonio 9, 11, 63, 73, 86-7,
First World War 111, 116, 136 91, 98, 109
Fisher, Philip 44 Gray, Edward 41, 42
fixity of species, doctrine of 97 Grayson, Donald 193
flaneur 30, 48, 186-7, 227, 240 Great Exhibition 61-2, 65, 72-3, 81-2,
Flower, Sir William Henry 42, 97, 171, 84, 186, 210, 213, 219, 225, 254n-
182, 252n 255n
Forbes, Edward 199 Greenblatt, Stephen 43-4, 129
Ford, Henry 116, 156 Greenfield Village 116-17, 156
Forgan, Sophie 247n Greenhalgh, Paul 103, 252n, 254n-255n
Fortier, John 2 5 In Greenwood, Thomas 2, 8, 18
Foucault, Michel 1 ,3 ,4 , 7-9, 11, 18, Guinamard, Laurent 247n
22-5, 39, 46, 59, 61-6, 68, 86-7, 89,
90-2, 95-6, 98-100, 102, 114, 188, Habermas, Jurgen 11, 25-7, 29, 33,
213-14, 247n, 248n-249n 247n
Fourier, Charles 48, 51 habitus 13; cultural 163
Frankfurt School 26 Hall, Catherine 39
Fraser Government 143 Haller, J.S. Jr. 252n
freak shows 84 Haller, Robin 252n
French Revolution 36, 50, 76, 89, 136, Harris, Neil 247n, 255n
184, 205 Harrison, Tom 230, 242
Friedman, John 193-4 Haug, W.F. 247n
Frow, John 164 Haupt, Robert 255n
Fry, Tony 219, 254n haute-bourgeoisie 30
Haussmann 56, 168
Galen of Pergamum 205, 252n Hawthorne, Nathaniel 116
galleria progressiva 76, 96 Hayden, Dolores 48
Gallery; of Aboriginal Australia 143, Hazelius, Artur 115
151, 2 5 In; of the Australian Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich 92
Environment 151 hegemony, 91, 101, 243
Gallipoli 138 Heinich, N. 249n
Galton, Francis 207, 208 heterotopias 1, 4
Gamble, Eliza Burt 252n Hinsley, Curtis 187
Garden of Eden 190 history; and preservation 122-3, 136;
Garrison, Dee 32 and reality 126-7, 137-8; and
Gateshead 113-14 structure of vision 163-73; and
Geddes, Patrick 183 theory 17-105; and war 136-9; and
Geist, Johann 248n writing 76
Geoffroy St-Hilaire, Isodore 192 history museums 129, 138-41, 146-53,
Giedion, Sigfried 249n 166, 180
Gilman, Sander 203 historical tourism 156-62
Ginzburg, Carlo 177-8 Hobsbawm, Eric 136, 148
Glasgow Empire Exhibition 83, 253n Hodge, Robert 249n
273
 INDEX

Hogden, Margaret 194-5 Lancaster, Joseph 46

holavision 253n Lancaster Castle 153
Holland, Billy 234 Landes, Joan 11, 28-9
Holmes, W.H. 252n Landsborough Bicentennial Historical
Honniger, Claudia 203 Museum 145
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean 5, 36-7, 39, Laqueur, Thomas 204-6
89, 95-6, 101, 103 Ledoux, Claude-Nicolas 48
Hope Committee 142-4 Leed’s Mechanics’ Institute 100
Hopkins, Nigel 253n Leeds Times 81
Hosmer, C.B. Jr. 249n-250n Leiden (Leyden) 2, 203, 248n
Hotel; Carnavalet 184; de Cluny 76, 96, leisure technologies 217, 224, 229,
250n; Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau 231, 238-41
184 Lenoir, Alexandre 166-7, 250n
Hottentot Venus 77, 202 Lloyd, Clem 2 5 In
Hudson, Kenneth 246n Lombroso, Cesare 204
Hunt, James 191 London: Cenotaph 140; Dungeon 153;
Hunt, Lynn 249n, 252n Missionary Society 200
Hunter, Ian 188, 249n Longstaff, William 140
Hunter, John 204 Loomis, Ross 246n
Hunter, William 204-5 Lord, Ken 224
Huxley, Thomas 177-8, 191, 195 Louis XIV 34
Hyde Park Barracks 120-2, 124-5, 134, Louvre, the 12, 36-8, 168-9, 247n;
145,154 Commission du Museum 37, 247n
Hygeia 18 Love, Rosaleen 252n
Lowenthal, David 149
imagined communities 148 Luna Park 55-6
Imperial War Museum 139, 250n Lyell, Charles 193
imperialism 77, 79
Impey, Olive 248n MacArthur, Colin 253n
Indigenous Cultural Survival Festival MacArthur, John 68, 248n
253n McBride, Theresa 247n
Industrial Gallery (Birmingham) 54 McBryde, Isabel 137
Inglis, K.S. 136-7, 249n-250n MacCannell, Dean 65, 156, 161
Inspector of Distilleries 124 McCullough, Edo 255n
Intercolonial Exhibition 219 MacDonald, Sally 246n
Interim Committee on the National Mace, Rodney 136
Estate 142 MacGregor, Arthur 248n
Interim Council of the Museum of McHoul, Alec 227
Australia 2 5 In Maclean, John 126
International Health Exhibition 208 Macleay Museum 136
Iron Age 183 Madame Tussaud 95, 153; Chamber of
Ironbridge Gorge Museum 114 Horrors 143, 145, 151-3
It' 11 Be Alright on the Night 114 Magna Carta 254n
Mahood, Linda 29
James, Paul 152 Malraux, Andre 92
Jameson, Mrs 167 ‘Man’ 7, 38-9, 45-6, 91, 96-7, 180, 190
Jardin des Plantes 184 Mann, P. 249n
Johanson, Beverley 254n Marin, Louis 34, 38
Jomard, E.F. 96 Markham, S.F. 135
Jordanova, Ludmilla 205 M ary Poppins 253n
M ary Rose 251 n
La Brecque, Harry 223 Marx, Karl 163
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre 192, Mason, Otis 96
252n; and evolution 190
 INDEX

mass observation movement 230 representativeness 39, 213; of

Mauss, Marcel 188 singularity 42, 44, 213; of sparsity 42
Mechanics’ Institutes 61, 72, 81; Museum of Modern Art 45
exhibitions 72, 81 Museum of Natural Curiosities 58
Melbourne Age 253n, 255n Museum of Natural History (London)
Melbourne Art Gallery 135 4 1 ,4 2 , 249n
Melbourne International Exhibition, the Museum of Victoria 3, 145, 219, 251
209 museum idea, the 198
Melbourne Sun 254n museums; and anthropology 77, 96,
Menard, Pierre 128 167, 180; and class culture 109-26;
Meyer, K.E. 248n as discursive space 102-5; and
Michelet, Jules 166 exclusiveness 27; formation 2-5,
Midway 5, 74, 83, 186-7, 223-4, 226, 17-105; as gendered space 28-9,
255n 32-3; as governmental instrument
Mill, John Stuart 207 28; and heritage policy 128-30, 133,
Millar, Ann 250n 142-6; instruction booklets 73, 199;
Millbank Penitentiary 95, 153-4 as instrument of discipline 89-105;
Miller, Edward 248n and legislation 129, 134; and
Miller, Michael 30 modernity 71, 160-1; and natural
Minihan, J. 249n history 4 1 -3 , 167, 180-1; as
Minson, Jeffrey 62 passionless reformers 21, 58, 203;
Mitchell, Hannah 252n and the penitentiary 87-8, 90, 94, 98,
Mitchell, Timothy 188, 254n 153; political rationality of 89-105;
modernism 172 politics and policies 109-27; and
modernity; and public leisure 230-6, progress 4 6 -7 , 81, 177-207; and
243-4 public manners 99-102; and the
Montaigne 194 public sphere 11, 25-33; and their
Montreal Expo ’67 209, 215, 236 publics 97, 99, 104, 169-70, 225;
Morris, William 32, 246n, 249n and visitors 10, 41-4, 47, 52-5, 69,
Mosedale, Susan 252n 72, 76, 102-5, 113, 117-18, 126-7,
Mullaney, Steven 187 131, 157, 164, 182—4, 186, 189, 198,
Mulvaney, D. 248n 200-1; visitor studies 7-8; and
Murray, David 2 women 201-8
Musee Carnavalet 184, 252n Myer Centre 227
Musee des monuments Francais 76, 96,
166, 250n Napoleon’s Column 136
Musee d’histoire naturelle 184 Napoleonic Wars 157
Musee d’Ethnographie de Paris (Musee National Estate 142-4, 148-9, 2 5 In
de l’homme) 78, 189, 201-3 National Gallery 55, 167
Museum; Act 123, 2 5 In; Association of National Heritage Policy 142
London 135, 252n; of Australia 123, National Library of Australia 25 In
145, 150-3; Bill 72; visitor studies National Maritime Museum 145, 149
246n, 249n National Museum of Copenhagen 195
Museum of Comparative Anatomy National Times 254n
(Harvard) 191 National Trust 136, 251n; New South
Museum of Comparative Zoology Wales 251n
(Harvard) 42 ‘nationing’: and Aboriginal culture
Museum of Criminal Anthropology 150-1; history 141-6; and
(Turin) 204 populations 76
museum display principles 33, 36, 37, Ned Kelly 154
43, 97; ethnographic 47, 79, 96, 147, Nelson’s Column 136
196-7; and exhibitions 80-2; of Neolithic Age 183
legibility 42; of rarity 39; of New Read House (Brisbane) 95
275
 INDEX
New York World’s Fair 209, 214, 254n
Nietzsche, Friedrich 134
Nordern, Dennis 118
North Eastern Railway Company 113
О’Doherty, Brian 171
Old Dubbo Gaol 154
Old Melbourne Gaol 154
Old Sydney Town 156-7, 160
Olmi, Guiseppe 27, 36
Olmstead, Frederick Law 226
Oodgeroo Noonuccal 253n
open-air museums 9, 115-17, 156-9
opening hours 70-1
Outhwaite, John 231
Outram, Dorinda 185
Owen, Richard 41, 48, 96, 248n, 252n
Ozouf, Mona 50
Pacific Islanders 215
Palaeolithic period 183
Panama Pacific Exhibition 75
Pan-American Exposition 68
panopticism 64-5, 68, 101
Panopticon 68
panoramas 66
Pantheon 181
past, the 128-62, 198; Australian
133-46; and narrative reconstruction
177-208; and peopling the 115-26,
128-62
Parallelogram 48
Parc, Monceau 156
Paris Exposition 69, 83-4, 209, 219,
235
Parker, Roszika 172
Parr, A.E. 181-2
Pateman, Carole 11, 189
Pearson, Nicholas 66, 87, 249n
Pentonville Model Prison 61
People’s Charter 70
People’s Palace 9, 120, 125-6
performative regimes 186-9
period room 76, 96
Perkin, Harold 232
Pevsner, Nikolaus 96, 250n
Phalanstery 48
Philadelphia Centennial Exposition 81,
209
Pigott Committee 143—4, 146, 150, 25 In
Pitt Rivers, A.H.L.F. 11, 43, 96, 147,
182-201, 252n; museum 79, 102,
252n
276
•
Place, Francis 8
Place Vendome 136
Pleasure Beach, the, and progress
236-7, 243
Pliny 193
politics of truth 91
Pollock, Griselda 172
polygenesis 78, 190-1
Pomian, Krzysztof 11, 35, 4 0-1, 165,
247n
Pommier, Edouard 37, 247n
Pompidou Centre 45
Port Arthur 128, 154-5
Port Jackson 121
postmodernism 92, 172, 254n
Poulantzas, Nicos 141-2
Poulot, Dominique 38, 224, 247n
power: forms of 9, 21-3, 26-7, 36-7,
40, 59-65, 67, 69, 84, 87, 90, 93-4;
and knowledge 59, 61, 66, 73, 74,
83, 87, 97-9
Power House Museum (Sydney) 145,
25 In
Prakash Gyan 35
Prince, Hugh 249
public life 255n
public museums 19, 26-7, 33, 39, 46,
70, 72-3, 77, 79, 80, 83, 89, 90,
92-4, 96, 99, 167-8
punishment 22-3, 59, 63-4, 67, 95,
102, 153, 155
Queensland Cultural Centre 219-22,
224, 227; State government 210
Queen Victoria 72
Quoniam, Pierre 247n
Rackstrow, Benjamin 204
Radcliffe, Jack 235
Raikes Hall 231
Rainbowserpent 215, 253n
Rainbowsphere 215, 217
Rainger, Robert 252n
Rajchman, John 247n
rational recreations 6, 20, 100, 249n
reading the past 130-3
Real, M.R. 160
regimes: of curiosity 40-1; of pleasure
231-45
Register of the National Estate 143-4,
149
Reid, Badger 248n, 253n
Renaissance 40, 92, 94-5, 187, 203-5
 INDEX

reordering; of people 62; of things Smart, Barry 101

33-47, 95-8 Smith, Charles 55
representative publicness 25 Smith, Reverend 55
respectability, and public leisure 230-6 Soane, Sir John 52; museum 54, 75
Richards, Evelleen 252n Societe des Observateurs 194
Richards, H.C. 135 Social Alternatives 253n
Richardson, Benjamin Ward 246n Sorbonne 194
Richardson, Ruth 252n South Kensington Exhibition 255n;
Rijksmuseum 149 Museum 40, 70-2, 198, 208, 222
Riley, Denise 28-9 Southwark Fair 56-7
Ripley Believe It Or Not Museums 103 Sovereign Hill (Ballarat) 145, 156-7,
Ripley, Dillon 12 160
Rocks, the 2 5 In; first impression spectacle 63-9, 86
sculpture 155 Spencer, Herbert 47, 191, 206
Rosny Park Historic Village 145 Stallybrass, Peter 27, 79, 86, 249n
Ross, J. 250n statuomania 136-7
royal collections and galleries 36, 38 St Bartholomew’s Fair 75, 86, 99
Royal College of Surgeons (London) Steam, W.T. 249n
204 Sternberger, Dolf 182
Royal Mint 124 Stocking, G.W. 192, 194, 252n
Rudler, F.W. 183 Stockman’s Hall of Fame (Longreach)
Rudwick, Martin 177-8, 248n, 252n 145
Ruskin, John 20, 32, 246n, 249n Strand, The 178
Ryan, Mary 11 Strong, Roy 21
Rydell, Robert 82-3, 190, 254n studioli 35-6, 59, 73, 93
supervised conformity 249n
San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific surveillance 63-9
Exposition 223 Sydney Harbour Bridge 121
Sayers, Janet 252n
Schiebinger, Londa 203, 205 Tafuri, Manfredo 69
Schinkel, Karl August 92, 181 Tall Ships 149
Schmitt, Carl 33 Tay, A.E.S. 250n
sciences, the 39-41, 44-5, 59, 75, 77, Taylor, Harriet 207
135, 177; and rationality 41; and technologies; of progress 177-245; of
visualizing capacities 177-8 self 17-18
scientific societies 247n teratology 193
Second World War 136 Thatcher, Mrs 134, 243
Sekuless, Peter 2 5 In Thompson, Geoffrey 240
Select Committees 70, 167; on Thompson, Leonard 235, 237
drunkenness 19; on National Timbertown, 145, 156-60
Monuments and Works of Art 52-3, time: conceptions of 39, 46, 59, 76, 79,
55 148-9, 194-5, 210, 214-15, 166;
semiophores 165 evolutive 40; synchronization 253n
Sennett, Richard 170, 255n Times, The 72
Shafto family 113 Times on Sunday 253n
Shapiro, Michael 169 Tower of London 53, 198
Sheepshank Gallery 32 Trafalgar Square 136
Shellal Mosaic 140 transformism 191, 252n
Sherlock Holmes 178 Trust House Forte 236
Sherman, Daniel 168, 170-1, 247n Turgot, Baron 194
Silverman, Debora 253n Tuileries Gardens 12
Skinner, Ghislaine 252n Turner, Gerard 26
Slane, Robert 32 Tyler, Edward 192, 196, 198
277
 INDEX

typological method 196, 199 Weatherall, Bob 253n

Webber, Kimberley 146
Uffizi Gallery 27 Welsh Folk Museum 115
United States National Museum Wembley Empire Exhibition 83
Smithsonian Institution 96, 252n West, Bob 114
universal survey museum 38 Western Australian Museum 25In
Uren, Tom 143 Westminster Abbey 101
When the Boat Comes In 118
Vaccine Institute 124 Whewell, William 186
van Keuren, David 197 Whig history 95, 154-5
Vauclause House 131, 135 White, A. 27, 79, 86, 249n
verisimilitude 2 5 In White City 56
Victoria and Albert Museum 109, 118 White, Richard 250n
Victoria’s Industrial and Technological Whitlam government 142-3, 146, 251 r
Museum 219 Wiener, Martin 114
Vidler, Anthony 28, 48, 166, 181 Williamsburg 157
Viennese Royal Collection 34 Willis, Anne-Marie 218, 254n
visibilities 34—6, 48, 56, 63-4, 69-75, Wilson, Luke 252n
83-4, 163-73, 179, 184, 198; and Wittlin, A.S. 246n
social regulation 48-55; and space Wordsworth, William 86
48, 52, 63, 101 world fairs 82-3, 103, 214; and
feminism 103
Wachtel, Eleanor 215, 252n Wright, David 255n
walking; as evolutionary practice Wright, Patrick 132, 134, 147, 152,
179-86; as supervised conformity 100 161, 25In
Walkowitz, Judith 30 Wunderkammer 40, 73, 93, 213
Wallace, Alfred 181, 196, 248n W ylde’s Great Globe 84
Wallace, Michael 11-5-17, 156
Wallach, Alan 36, 38, 168 Yosemite National Park 129
Walton, John 232
Ward, Dr 70 Zadig’s method 177-8, 195

278
J
 VHhat is the
cultural function
o f the museum ?
H ow did modern
museums evolve?

T on y B e n n ett’s in vigoratin g stu d y en rich es and ch allenges our

u n d erstan d in g o f th e m useum , p lacin g it at th e cen tre o f m odern
relation s o f cu ltu re and governm ent.

B en n ett argues th at th e p u b lic m useum sh ou ld b e u n d ersto o d n o t ju st as a place

o f in stru ctio n b u t as a reform atory o f m anners in w hich a w id e range o f regulated
social rou tines and perform ances take place. D iscu ssin g th e h istorical
d evelop m en t o f m useum s alon gsid e that o f th e fair and th e in tern ation al
ex h ib itio n , he sheds n ew lig h t upon th e relation sh ip b etw een
m odern form s o f official and popular cu lture.

In a series o f rich ly d etailed case stu d ies from B ritain, A ustralia and
N o rth A m erica, B en n ett in vestigates how n in e te en th - and tw e n tie th -c e n tu r y
m useum s, fairs and ex h ib itio n s have organised their c o llec tio n s, and their
v isito rs. H is u se o f F oucaultian p ersp ectiv es and h is con sid eration o f m useum s in
relation to o th er cu ltural in stitu tio n s o f d isp lay p rovides a d istin c tiv e
p ersp ective on con tem p orary m useum p o licies and p o litics.

T o n y B e n n e t t is Professor o f C u ltu ral S tu d ies and F oun dation D irecto r o f th e

In stitu te for C ultu ral P olicy S tu d ies in the F a cu lty o f H u m a n ities at G riffith
U n iversity, A ustralia. H e is th e au th or o f Formalism and M arxism, Outside Literature
and (w ith Janet W oollacott) Bond and Beyond: The Political Career o f a Popular Hero.
C u l t u r e : P o l ic y a n d P o l it ic s
Ed it o r ia l Bo ard :
T ony B ennett (C onvenor) • Jennifer C raik • Ian H u n te r
Colin M ercer • D ugald W illiamson

Cover photograph: M ary R obert Photoworks

Cover design: R ichard Earney

C u l t u r a l s t u d ie s / M u s e u m s t u d ie s

ISBN 978-0-415-05388-4

R Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
Printed in Great Britain
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